Fucking Daphne: Mostly True Stories and Fictions
For me, the pleasure of reading fiction is getting lost in someone's detailed and self-sufficient world. Since the stories in Fucking Daphne already have an external framework, they don't need to possess an inner logic. I can't get absorbed in them without constantly thinking of the genesis of the project. This neatly reflects the dominant-submissive relationships expressed in almost every story. Ultimately, Gottlieb is in control, despite her non-committal approach to the truth. In a book that explores the edge between fact and imagination, reality and desire, her authorship is indisputable. --Donna Blumenfeld, Venus Zine, June 3rd, 2008I can't tell you the name of Daphne Gottlieb's new book -- it's too anatomical -- but I can link to it right here. It's a collection featuring nearly 30 stories that imagine the San Francisco performance poet and provocatrix in a variety of, er, compromising positions, written by a pretty good crew of West Coast underground literati, including Stephen Elliott, Ariel Gore, Bucky Sinister and Justin Chin.There's no denying that Gottlieb's on to something with this project -- a postmodern mash-up of truth and illusion that seeks to eclipse the line between how others see us and the way we see ourselves. The book had its genesis when she began to realize that some of her acquaintances were writing dirty stories about her (one appeared in Best American Erotica) that featured "[e]verything about me, it seems, except my underwear and my modesty." Eventually, Gottlieb put out a call for submissions; the result is this book.I love the blurriness of this idea, the way fantasy and reality blend together until we don't know what's fiction or fact. Yet I'd be lying if I didn't admit to some discomfort -- not because of the sex but because of the narcissism.Here we have an almost perfect metaphor for the conundrum of contemporary culture, with its look-at-me self-absorption, its sense that the artist is more important than the art.In the end, that too is what Gottlieb's book speaks to, whatever her intentions are. --David L. Ulin, LA Times, May 28, 2008The conceit is a treat: Daphne Gottlieb edits a collection of stories - all about Daphne Gottlieb. A less skilled editor might have corralled less talented contributors - but readers luck out with this nervy anthology, where it's hard to tell which tales are fact and which are fiction. Does it really matter if Bett Williams did or did not have sex with Daphne after they shared a reading stage, as told in "New Friend"? Or if Lori Selke really was seduced at age 20 by Daphne - and a bag of Hershey's chocolate kisses - as revealed in "Kiss and Tell"? Marlo Gayle's story about Daphne marching in a parade dressed as a bondage bunny ("Why Things Hop") is rooted in some truth, as Gottlieb reveals in her introduction. But Justin Chin's imaginative "The Meow" - about what Daphne's cat thinks about Daphne's sexual partners - well, that's fiction, of course; cats aren't people, so they can't write, right? The 29 delightfully smart stories in this erotically playful anthology straddle the real and the imaginary with delectable, delightful zeal. --Richard Labonte, Book Marks, June 16th, 2008