I'm not sure how comfortably Pierce Nace's Eat Them Alive fits into your world, but I can assure you it fits very well into mine.
I've written about this brilliant, audacious, and truly magnificent book twice before, and you can bet I'll be writing about it again. Being the stunning work of art that it is, it lies where it wants in my world, isn't required to work, and never incurs my wrath.
How could it? With a mug like this?
When Nace decided to out-Herbert James Herbert's The Rats (and associated vermin), and out-Smith Guy N. Smith's Night of the Crabs (and associated crustaceans), he/she (nobody knows Nace's true identity) didn't mess around. The book is a celebratory gore-fest of unrepentant violence and spirited insect rape, a poem to literary extremity. It is the sorry tale of a Man/Hero/Villain named Dyke whose penis is liberated by a nasty gang. Unable to forgive and forget the dismissal of his manhood, Dyke gathers an army of giant prey mantises to exact revenge on all who've done him wrong -- which is pretty much everybody, as you could imagine. If you're wondering where Dyke found mantises willing to assist him with his revenge campaign, I should mention that he happened to be close to an erupting volcano at the time, and, lucky for him, the eruption vomited up some sleepy giants of the mantis variety. Turns out dear old Dyke wasn't born under an unlucky star afterall.
I Google "Eat Them Alive by Pierce Nace" quite often, hoping to scavenge another tidbit of its mysterious parentage. This morning over breakfast, I came across a youtube clip in which a young horror fan discusses his eight favorite horror books. One of them, it turns out, is Eat Them Alive. God bless this son of Britain! He also lavishes schoolboy praise on Barker's Weaveworld, King's It and Misery, and HG Wells's Island of Dr. Moreau.
Check the fine lad out here: h**p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIk7n3EcSTw (replace *'s, of course)
Eat Them Alive is set on an island called Malpelo, and what happens on Malpelo is something I'm sure old HG would have been quite excited about. Islands are rarely boring. I know that. HG knew it.
There is some speculation that Nace is a woman: Evelyn Pierce Nace, an American crime author. Being extremely familiar with the Nace novel (I've read it at least five times), I'd be surprised if it were written by a woman. The passages of salacious dismemberment feel like the emptying of a male brain. Then again, castration does play a significant role in matters. Few males fantasize about that.
If you haven't read it, why the hell not? You're denying yourself one of the world's greatest literary experiences. You're starving your brain of something extraordinary, the likes of which it has never reckoned with before.
Make Eat Them Alive part of your furniture, part of your world.
Live a little.
