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Saturday, February 19, 2005 News of the weird Here's something weird. My father, who was an awful and abusive father, is leaving bad reviews of my books on Amazon.com. The most recent one being for Happy Baby, posted under the name Blum732, blum being his last name before he changed it and 732 being the last three digits of his email address. If there's a lesson here I guess it's that abusive parents don't stop being abusive just because they get older. Abusive relationships are psychological in nature and if you know an abuser, someone who lashes out and can't control their emotions, get away from that person. Cut the cord and never look back. Continuing on this weird, personal topic. On the same day I see my father's post on Amazon I receive my records from Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. There's some fascinating stuff in there. A great story told by a social worker to illustrate my relationship with my father. I was locked in a mental hospital at the time after my sixth suicide attempt and I had been wearing the same clothes for a couple of months. All I had was the jeans and t-shirt I was arrested in. I was fourteen. In the records it says that my father agreed to go and pick up clothes I had left at friends houses. He then decided he would do that only if I would take them from his hand. I, of course, said no, as the reason I had slit my wrists was because he had found me sleeping in his old house, beat me up, and shaved my head, and I was upset about that. I didn't want to see him. He then decided he wouldn't pick up the clothes after all. Two pages later, in a separate psychological assessment, the psychologist writes that I am depressed and evidences this with my shoddy appearance, noting that my clothes are dirty and torn. "You see," I said, reading through these records in a bar with a friend of mine. "That's why I write the stuff I do." We had a good laugh. It was funny, and tragic, in a way. UPDATE - The Amazon review has been removed and so I guess I'll take down this post shortly. The basics of the review was one star with the headline Awful. It went on to say that Happy Baby was disgusting because the narrator was sympathetic to the person who molested him. Also that the author (me) is a fake and that I abused my mother who died twenty years ago when I was thirteen. UPDATE 2 - Here's the original review left by my father for my novel, Happy Baby: I liked the part where he talks about how his dad was so kind and gentle, as in his interview in The Daily Californian. But the rest of the book has scenes like the one where he kisses the hand of the man who abused him. Pretty disgusting stuff and will have most normal people wanting to throw up. The author appears to be a sicko, and getting sicker with each book. Just because he hates children and would rather play cards than visit his aging Aunt Betty or send a thank you note to Andy Chiuppi,and yells at his sick mother to give him money, doesn't mean that everybody does. Success has ruined this author. At one time he used to sound like a nice guy. Now he sounds more like a 12-year-old with a computer habit and an invented background, devoured by a life of fakery. posted by Stephen Elliott 1:02 PM | link | |
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"Any true love story, if told with the urgency and animal intelligence of love, isn't for the fainthearted. On every page of this profound, distilled work of art, Stephen Elliott wrestles with the unknown and unspoken essences of love, and articulates that unknown so beautifully, with such clear-eyed fearlessness... Imagine a glass of pure water with one drop of blood hanging in its center, about to dissolve... Then drink it and be transformed." -Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City "There's an emotional courage to these stories, and a sense of urgency, that are thrilling to encounter. Elliott writes as if his life depended on each sentence. It is not overstating the case to say that he does for the BDSM community in this book what Denis Johnson did for lost druggies in Jesus' Son." - Steve Almond, The Believer Magazine Best of the year: Salon.com, San Francisco Chronicle Reviews: Salon.com, LA Weekly, The Believer Excerpts: My Stripper Year, Just Always Be Good Purchase from Amazon, Powells, Cleis, and your local bookstore 
"Happy Baby is surely the most intelligent and beautiful book ever written about juvenile detention centers, sadomasochism, and drugs." - Curtis Sittenfeld, The New York Times Book Review Best of the year: Village Voice, Salon.com, Chicago New City, The Journal News Awards: Finalist Young Lions Award, Silver Medal California Book Award Reviews: The New York Times, Salon.com, Village Voice Excerpts: Stalking Gracie Part 3 Purchase from Amazon, Powell's, and your local bookstore 
"Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Mailer, Richard Ben Cramer: the great, all-American genre of the political campaign in extenso (and in extremis) has had its Homers and Boswells. To that list we can now add Stephen Elliott. Hilarious, strange, electrifyingly written, and heart-pumpingly idealistic, Looking Forward to It wins every literary caucus and primary in a landslide." -Tom Bissell, author of Chasing the Sea Best of the year: Village Voice Reviews: New York Magazine, New York Times Excerpts: The Dennis Kucinich Polka, A John Edwards Almanac Purchase from Amazon, Powell's (cheap!), and your local bookstore 
"A Life Without Consequences was harrowing, hard as nails, brutal, and soaring. Stephen Elliott has to be watched, because he knows things almost no one else could." - Dave Eggers, author of A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius and What Is The What Excerpt: Adlai Stevenson House Reviews: Austin American Statesman Purchase from Amazon |
