the peter sotos files

Original publisher description:
Peter Sotos, the writer who ‘rapes a blank page’, whose pen is ‘the verbal knife of a sadist’, is now regarded as perhaps the most important modern writer on pornography. In this new edition of Index, he casts a savage eye over those enslaved, degraded and ultimately destroyed by sex. Reporting back candidly at human lives entwined with pornography, prostitution, drug abuse, murder, and anonymous, unprotected sexual encounters, Sotos also exposes the media hypocrisy surrounding these issues with ruthless clarity. Recently translated into French, Index is now one of three Sotos/Creation Books ventures, his other two titles being Tick and Lazy. His other publications include Pure, Special and Total Abuse. He is also a member of Whitehouse, the notorious ‘electronic extremes’ band.

First edition (black cover) published by Creation imprint Tears Corporation as part of the "Velvet Series." Judging by Ebay listings, this edition seems to be slightly more common in the UK. Second edition (white cover) published 2000. MSRP £9.95 (£7.40 via Creation webstore).

Translated into French. Collected in Proxy and Private.

Original publisher description:
SPECIAL is Peter Sotos' 3rd book publication. Creation Books released INDEX in the spring of '98 as part of its Velvet series and now Rude Shape Books has grabbed the mantle and released Peter's SPECIAL in a limited first edition of 500 copies. SPECIAL features the work of New York photographer James Levendos spread amongst its 256 pages. 21 and over only. MSRP: $19.99.

Collected (sans images) in Proxy and Perfect. Translated into German. Find the partially-archived Rude Shape site here (one must wonder about the VHS compilation they solicited but never produced).

Original publisher description:
Peter Sotos, the writer who 'rapes a blank page', whose pen is 'the verbal knife of a sadist', unleashes his latest controversial dispatch: Lazy. Drawing from his own experiences, insights and investigations, Sotos slices open the dark underbelly of the sex industry and reveals the harsh, gritty and brutal extremes that lurk within. From prostitution, pornography and drug abuse to the most notorious sex crimes, Sotos' fascination with the darker side of humanity is relentless and uncompromising. Intersected throughout with newspaper extracts reporting on and responding to sex crimes and related subjects (such as Myra, Marcus Harvey's controversial portrait at the recent 'Sensation' exhibition), Lazy not only presents an un-anaesthetised account of pornography and extreme sex, but through its frank delivery, it questions society's own, often hypocritical, fascination with these taboo subjects. Peter Sotos, recently translated into french, is now regarded as the most important modern writer on pornography. The author of Index (Creation Books, French edition published by La Musardine), Pure, Special and Total Abuse, he is also a member of Whitehouse the notorious 'industrial noise' band.

MSRP £11.95 (£8.90 via Creation webstore). Collected in Proxy and Public.

Original publisher description:
Peter Sotos, probably the most important modern writer on pornography and sex crimes, unleashes Tick, his latest controversial dispatch from the cutting-edge of pornography, sexual abuse and degradation. Drawing from his own experiences, insights, investigations and sourced documents, Sotos slices open the dark underbelly of the sex industry and reveals the harsh, gritty and brutal extremes of prostitution, pornography, drug abuse and the most notorious sex crimes that lurk within. By presenting such material in a frank and non-judgemental manner - interspersed with actual news articles brandishing often unnecessary, sexual detail - Sotos is able to raise discomforting questions about society’s own, often hypocritical, fascination with these taboo subjects. Peter Sotos is the author of Index, recently translated into French by La Musardine, and Lazy. His other publications include Pure, Special and Total Abuse. He is also a member of Whitehouse, the notorious ‘electronic extremes’ band.

MSRP £9.95 (£7.40 via Creation webstore). Collected in Proxy and Perfect. Translated into French.

Original publisher description:
In this unnerving book, cult author Peter Sotos examines the brutal murder of Lesley Ann Downey at the hands of British “Moors Murderers” Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. With frank, inimitable prose and self-deprecating wit, Sotos interweaves numerous accounts – culled from tabloids, memoirs, and television specials – of the sensational crime and its devastating aftermath with analogous excerpts from recent headlines, explicit erotic fantasies, and graphic descriptions of degrading, often-anonymous carnal encounters. Sotos persistently seeks the truth where others are afraid to look, and discovers an implicit pornography in the public lamentations of Downey’s grieving mother, media coverage of lurid sex crimes, and journalistic forays into the private lives of sex offenders. Replete with autobiographic tales of sexual excess, telling interviews, and thoughtful musings on crime, art, and pornography, Selfish, Little is a surreal “smorgasbord of unabashed vulgarity.”

Collected in Private. Translated into French..

Original publisher description:
In this unsettling new book, cult author Peter Sotos recounts the abduction and murder of 8-year-old Sarah Payne, a crime that stunned England and spawned an aftermath of reactionary outcry and violent protest. Through news bites and tabloid clippings reassembled in reverse chronology, Sotos examines the media apotheosis of Payne's parents in the wake of her disappearance, scrutinizes the hidden motives of reporters and citizens driven to hysterical excess by grief, vengeance, and opportunism, and illumines the insatiable lusts that govern the actions of sexual predators. Punctuated by philosophical overtures and self-deprecating quips, Comfort and Critique is a brutal meditation on fantasy and desire set against a backdrop of media banter and illicit back room activity in bars and underground sex clubs. Supplemented by over 100 photos, this volume is possibly Sotos' most revealing and multi-faceted work yet.

Collected in Public.

Original publisher description:
Ten years after the massacre, Peter Sotos re-examines Dunblane, dissecting Thomas Hamilton's motives and revealing the gay clandestine sub-culture which spawned this most reviled of all killers.

Collected in Public and 1. Obviates.

Critical examination of Supernanny, To Catch a Predator, and the subsumed pedophilic fantasizing typical to American media.

Collected in 1. Obviates. Relative to others published by Creation, this book seems very scarce. I once owned a copy, but was convinced to sell it when I acquired Obviates. It was almost immediately lost by the post office. Hopefully somebody ended up enjoying it.

Collected in Perfect, from which the image at right is taken.

Collaboration with pornographer Jamie Gillis, best known for the On the Prowl series. Sotos transcribes scenes from Gillis' films while the latter offers explanatory introductions. In contrast to similar projects which focus mostly on the physical action of a scene (such as David Fremann's AV Club series published by Institute of Paraphilia Studies), Sotos' transcriptions are almost solely focused on the performers' dialogue, which physical action elided into simple, often one-word descriptions. Sotos also writes a fairly extensive introduction to the entire project, which is likely the book's primary point of interest for his usual readership.

Among other places, Sotos discusses the personal significance of Gillis' films in Instead Indices.

Original publisher description:
In 1985, Peter Sotos was arrested. He was charged with obscenity for publishing a magazine and was later convicted for possession of child pornography. After his trial, he kept a low profile. He worked for a meat distribution company and struggled to pay down his legal bills. He underwent mandatory counseling. Then, in the late 1980s, he began writing a manuscript that, once published, would signal the mature arrival of one of the most disquieting and original voices in English literature. That manuscript was called Tool. Opening with an excruciating set piece inspired by the crimes of Ian Brady, Tool unfolds through a sequence of vivid metafictional narratives that rain hard light on the blackest recesses of a Sadean abyss, limning a ferocious tableau vivant thronged with victims and whores and jaded cops, with grief-stricken mothers, writhing AIDS casualties, and abased gloryhole habitués. In one deeply resonant chapter, Sotos renders a coruscating account of his fateful arrest and interrogation. Written in lean, exacting prose, Tool stands as a deftly structured, pornographically sifted psycho-literary inquest, a pneumatic masterpiece marked by preternatural acumen, stark verisimilitude, and implacable emotive gravity. Originally published by Jim Goad in the 1996 omnibus, Total Abuse, the text has since appeared in the Creation Books collection, Proxy. This is the first stand-alone edition. It is presented with a publisher’s introduction and a new closing essay by Peter Sotos.

Collected in Proxy. Chapter 1 originally published as "Quality Time" in ANSWER Me! #4, which was subsequently reprinted in ANSWER Me! All Four Issues.

Original publisher description:
Against a densely imbricated skein of documentary fragments and confessional annotation, Mine advances a sustained, interlocutory investigation into the ulterior etiologies and malignant narcissism of underground pornography. “How dare you cling to the idea that there’s something to be understood.”

Kiddiepunk product listing.

Sotos text with typically-repellent images by photographer Michael Salerno. Text reprinted in Kiddiepunk Collected 2011-2015

Original publisher's description:
In this prismatic and obliquely appreciative study of Antoine D’Agata’s photography, Peter Sotos arraigns the fraught vocabulary of gallery apologists — and of D’Agata himself — to locate a “finer definition of pornography” beneath the exigent demands of desire, transgression, and art.

Original publisher description:
Through the revisitation of a kept file of newspaper clippings, Peter Sotos blends formative personal history with an exacting analysis of criminal and victim case reports to render a pornographically freighted disquisition on sexual compulsion and desistance. Ingratitude is also a study of restitution set against and the perpetual churn of memory. “It’s so easy to think you’re worse than you are.”

The last Sotos book sold new on Amazon? I actually pre-ordered it through there, if you can believe it.

Original publisher description:
Possessed by a galvanic intensity rarely encountered in contemporary art, the work of Lionel Maunz is exhibited in discursive arrangement with Peter Sotos’ thematically expansive commentary in this ingeniously layered collation. Whether it is approached as an archival showcase of Maunz’s viscerally assaulting gallery portfolio, or as an exegetical key to the personal histories and refractory obsessions that inform and inscribe an overarching psycho-aesthetic confrontation with suffering, violence and desire, Lionel Maunz Peter Sotos is an immersive and uniquely disquieting fusion of text and imagery. The forum is sick, the conversation corrupted by the audience. Co-published by Amphetamine Sulphate and Nine-Banded Books, this full-color, large-format, limited edition hardcover features 187 color photos and illustrations by Lionel Maunz and a 63,000 word text by Peter Sotos. Copies ordered in advance of the December 1 release date will be individually autographed by Lionel Maunz and Peter Sotos.

Original publisher's description:
Published by Amphetamine Sulphate in association with Nine-Banded Books, Peter Sotos’ Missed. Better Still. is neither an anthology nor a collage, but a conceptually trained arrangement of previously published texts selected and sequenced by the author.

Back cover description:
(start here) Predicate Comfort and Critique Perfect Jason Swift Lazy Ingratitude Index Show Adult Crows Waitress Tick Selfish, Little from Home Missing Children Repertoire Kept Desistance Lordotics Mine (and finished there)

About the work of Vanessa Place.

MSRP $95.00. Approximately 100 copies were given to Amphetamine Sulphate for distribution outside of the US, which sold out very quickly.

Collects all issues of the zines Pure (two of which previously unreleased) and Parasite, as well as the previously-unpublished novel Tool. Cover of Pure #2 is censored, obviously. Includes interview conducted by Goad, "The 120 Days of Sotos," which details the circumstances of Sotos' arrest, among other things. Back cover blurbs by Adam Parfrey and Steve Albini. MSRP $10.

Original publisher description:
PROXY is a new compendium edition of 5 hard-to-find books by Peter Sotos: TOOL, LAZY, INDEX, TICK, and SPECIAL, all contained in one over-sized volume and with a brand new introduction by the author. LAZY is included in a new, revised version never available elsewhere.

Collects Tool, Index, Special, Lazy, and Tick. Features introduction by the author, and a revised version of Lazy. First edition included Proxy CD. MSRP 24.95.

Original publisher description:
PERFECT is the first volume in a projected 3-volume set of collected writings by Peter Sotos, to be published throughout 2009. PERFECT contains three full-length books: LORDOTICS, TICK, and SPECIAL. It also contains a brand new, previously unpublished closing section: THE PERFECT JASON SWIFT, in which Sotos sheds light on some of the themes and motivations behind the three books.

Collects Lordotics, Tick, Special, and the previously-unpublished "The Perfect Jason Swift," elements of which were later used in Missed, Better Still.

Original publisher description:
PUBLIC is the second volume in a projected multi-volume set of collected writings by Peter Sotos, to be published throughout 2009. PUBLIC contains three full-length books: COMFORT & CRITIQUE , PREDICATE, and LAZY. It also contains a brand new, 60-page previously unpublished closing section: REPERTOIRE, in which Sotos sheds light on some of the themes and motivations behind the three books.

Collects Comfort & Critique, Predicate, Lazy, and the previously-unpublished "Repertoire," elements of which were later used in Missed, Better Still.

Original publisher description:
PRIVATE is the third volume in a projected multi-volume set of collected writings by Peter Sotos, to be published throughout 2009. PRIVATE contains three full-length books: INDEX, SELFISH, LITTLE, and SHOW ADULT. It also contains a brand new, 40-page, previously unpublished illustrated closing section: CROWS, in which Sotos sheds light on some of the themes and motivations behind the three books.

Collects Index, Selfish, Little, Show Adult and the previously-unpublished Crows, elements of which were later used in Missed, Better Still.

Original publisher description:
For the fourth volume of his collected works, Peter Sotos has created KEPT, a brand new and original book – a “monograph of limited masturbation” – based around his vast collection of news clippings, assembled over several decades. KEPT is a work in three sections: the first, Filming Children, identifies multiple stories, themes, fetishes, and strands of misinformation, bleeding together and collaged onto backgrounds which comprise a second, fragmentary sub-textual narrative. Sections two and three – Indulging Children and Missing Children – are new text pieces which form a further commentary on the preceding images, incorporating arrest transcripts, parental interviews and other illuminating documentation.

Elements of "Missing Children" were later used in Missed, Better Still.

Original publisher description:
Definitive edition of two long out-of-print works, with many previously unpublished images from the author's archive. In Predicate (2005), Sotos re-examines Dunblane ten years after the massacre, dissecting Thomas Hamilton's motives and revealing the gay sub-culture of clandestine paedophilia which spawned this most reviled of all killers. Show Adult (2007) investigates the experience of pornography. The book also analyzes the TV shows Supernanny and To Catch a Predator as publicly acceptable forms of child pornography.

Collects Predicate and Show Adult.

Likely Sotos' best-known and most infamous publication. Amateur "true crime" zine detailing, among other things, prostitution, rape, serial murder, pornography, Nazi atrocities, and child abuse, written from the perspective of someone highly sympathetic to such endeavors. Goad and others have suggested that this tone, contrapuntal to the ordinary moralization of the true crime genre, marks Pure as essentially-parodic or polemical, while Sotos himself seems to regard his writing here as juvenilia.

Three volumes produced ("Volume 3" is split into two issues), although only #1 and #2 saw significant distribution prior to Sotos' arrest. The second issue is particularly notorious for its cover, which reproduces an image from a commercial (likely European) CSAM magazine (I am grateful for never having seen it). According to an interview with Sotos in Total Abuse, a copy of Pure #2 was found in the possession of a member of British ritual industrial group Metgumbnerbone after they were arrested on suspicion of grave robbing, which prompted an investigation into him by Scotland Yard. This ultimately led to his arrest and suspended sentencing. I've heard it said that Sotos is the first American found guilty of possession of CSAM, although I don't think that's actually true, even just going off of cases actually detailed in the zine.

Collected in Total Abuse.

Sotos' second major zine. While Pure largely dealt with crimes, in Parasite Sotos critically interrogates a wider array of subject matter in his own unique literary voice. Each issue includes extensive reading lists and citations, and often sees Sotos review and respond to various pieces of media. Perhaps the best-known issue sees Sotos respond to an article by William T. Vollmann in which the latter acts out every sex tourist fantasy possible in the name of "rescuing" child prostitutes, which Sotos reads as a kind of pedophilia by hygienic proxy. Others discuss Varg Vikernes' murder of Euronymous, the music of Whitehouse, Dworkin & MacKinnon, and The World's Biggest Gang-Bang.

In my critical opinion, Parasite contains some of Sotos' most incisive and thought-provoking writing, which is particularly well-honed by the space considerations of the zine format. Even if your opinion on Sotos' output is generally low, Parasite is well worth reading and quoting.

Collected in Total Abuse.

Periodical offered as special bonus for ordering various books through Creation, most notably the limited hardcover editions of The Collected Peter Sotos. Each volume limited to 50 copies. Reprints interviews and newspaper quotations, as well as original writing and citations thereon. Extremely scarce on the secondary market. A scan exists, but does it is unclear whether it represent all material published in all volumes.

Original publisher description:
TWO THOUSAND YEARS have passed since the death of Christ and the world is going mad. Nihilist prophets, born-again pornographers, transcendental schizophrenics and just plain folks are united in their belief in an imminent global catastrophe. What are the forces lurking behind this mass delirium? APOCALYPSE CULTURE is a startling, absorbing and exhaustive tour through the nether regions of today’s psychotic brainscape. First published in 1987, APOCALYPSE CULTURE immediately touched a nerve. Alternately excoriated and lauded as “epochal”, “the most important book of the decade,” APOCALYPSE CULTURE had begun to articulate what many inwardly sensed — the-fear inspired irrationalism and faith, the clash of irreconcilable forces, and the ever-looming specter of fin de race. In its present incarnation for Feral House, APOCALYPSE CULTURE has significantly increased in size, taking on new perspectives on our current crisis, with pertinent revisions of many articles from the original edition.

Contains an interview with Sotos conducted by Paul Lemos of industrial group Controlled Bleeding. Translated into French, Spanish, Russian. Possibly others?

"Rape" issue, infamously subject to unsuccessful Washington state obscenity trial. Contains Sotos' short story "Quality Time" (later used as the first chapter of Tool), with illustrations by Trevor Brown. Also contains a piece, "Fucking Andrea Dworkin," by Sotos publisher and collaborator Adam Parfrey.

MSRP 3.95. Reprinted in 2000 (some sources say 2001) by Lion's Paw. Collected in ANSWER Me! All Four Issues.

Contains interview with Sotos, detailing the creation of Pure and Parasite, the circumstances of his arrest and sentencing, some of his inspirations, his opinions on people who write to imprisoned murderers, Mike Diana, etc. Frustratingly, one question mentions the elusive Pure compilation videos, but Sotos doesn't say anything about it. The book also features contributions from Sotos collaborators Trevor Brown and Miguel Angel Martin.

Back cover description:
A volume of literary explorations of the many intersection of sex and religion. While many people believe the body and soul to occupy completely independent realms, the contributors to Ritual Sex demonstrate that the two share more common ground than society feels comfortable acknowledging. From personal memoirs of ecstatic revelation, to fictional quests to reconcile sex and spirit, to historical overviews of of religion's obsession with regulating the libido, Ritual Sex delves into forbidden areas with gusto - providing an unprecedented look at private life.

Contains Sotos' piece "Full Blown," which frankly has precariously little to do with the above description. In the "Contributors" section, Sotos is described as "One of those unassuming confrontationalists who prefers to torment the masses with the brute force of his observations rather than the cult of his personality. A Chicago native and bartender by trade, Sotos suffered official harassment and persecution for his legendary underground magazine, PURE. He now publishes the newsletter Parasite, and is finishing a novel for AP Press.

A few editions exist, including a mass-market paperback.

Naturally, a collection of black-and-white illustrations by Trevor Brown, whose work appeared alongside Sotos' in ANSWER Me! #4, Funeral Party and various Whitehouse covers. Supposedly contains a foreword by Sotos, although I haven't managed to track it down to confirm, much less read it.

Original publisher description:
When it was published in 1987, Apocalypse Culture was the first of its kind. No other book examined such disturbing cultural extremes, and no other book looked at the dark sides of society within the framework of the apocalypse. In the intervening 12 years, it has become clear that Apocalypse Culture inspired a new genre of cultural commentary that has been embraced by both independent and large mainstream publishers and eagerly sought after by the culture at large. Among its fans is X-Files creator Chris Carter. Now Adam Parfrey offers a follow-up to that first book. Apocalypse Culture II is an entirely new collection of essays that reflect the most recent revelations of the New World Order. Through the extremes of postmodern culture it details the moral disintegration of the old world. Essays cover biological warfare, taboo art, sexual fetishism, mind control for corporate gain, government sex-slavery, creepy superstars, and more.

Contains Sotos' piece "Prime Time," discussing the murder of JonBenét Ramsey. Much scarcer than the first Apocalypse Culture - I have heard rumors of rights issues (possibly related to the piece by Crispin Hellion Glover), but I have no idea if they're true. Was recently reprinted and sold on the Feral House webstore, so probably not.

Translated into Spanish under the title Nueva cultura del apocalipsis.

Sotos-centric edition of fringe French publication. Features multiple interviews (in English and French), archival materials, and excerpts of the previously-unpublished Playground Sex. Second edition supposedly features updated interviews and more archival material. Both editions feature cover art by Trevor Brown. The scan of the first edition that you can find online is by me, so sorry it looks like shit.

Memoir (or something) by Ian Brady, whose crimes are a frequent subject of Sotos' writing. Sotos contributes an afterword, which seems to critique Brady's pretentious philosophizing and self-aggrandizement. The inclusion of Sotos' piece reportedly infuriated Brady, to the amusement of editor Parfrey (among others). In an interview (I believe one reproduced in Waitress, but I need to check the citation), however, Sotos claims to have enjoyed the book and seems surprised by Brady's reaction, so take that how you will.

Back cover description:
STRAIGHT TO HELL looks at some of the most shocking and spectacular suicides of modern times, self-inflicted deaths by figures who were either famous beforehand or achieved notoriety by the sheer nature, scale, or repercussions of their fatal actions. Ripe with human carnage, STRAIGHT TO HELL is a grim catalog of sudden, often brutal deaths which constantly serve to remind us of our own fragile mortality.

Contains a piece by Sotos on Thomas Hamilton, perpetrator of the Dunblane massacre. I'll have to check how much of this material, if any, was reused in Predicate.

Original publisher description:
From 1986 through 2000, SECONDS Magazine redefined rock journalism with intellectual and infernal investigations of the world's most intense characters. Founded by Steven Blush (American Hardcore) and edited by George Petros (EXIT, Juxtapoz), SECONDS evolved from an essential Downtown New York underground music publication into the seminal source for definitive interviews with past, present and future icons of all musical genres. Additionally, the mag featured in-depth interviews with artists, writers, serial killers, scientists, kooks and great thinkers. By the time publication ceased, the magazine's subtitle was, appropriately, "The Art Of The Interview.".45 DANGEROUS MINDS is a collection of the 45 most mind-blowing of those interviews. The book also contains a massive compendium of amazing quotes from every person interviewed in SECONDS. Interviewers include Paper Magazine editor/art curator Carlo McCormick, Billboard editor Tamara Conniff, Lords Of Chaos author Michael Moynihan, noted artist Steven Cerio, Industrial Music icon Boyd Rice, as well as Blush, Petros and others..45 DANGEROUS MINDS is not suggested for those easily offended.

Contains an interview with Sotos conducted by less talented/less interesting provocateur Michael Moynihan, originally printed in Seconds magazine. I need to check which issue it was originally from.

Original publisher description:
For the first time ever, all four issues — yes, including the infamous “Rape” issue — of Jim and Debbie Goad’s legendary and seismically controversial magazine, ANSWER Me!, have been collected under one cover. Nine-Banded books is very proud to bring this sumptuous compendium into existence, and we’ve spared no expense in getting it right. Extras include a new interview with Jim Goad, a full-size enclosure of “The Rape Game,” and previously unpublished material. Long before anyone worried about “trigger warnings” or “safe spaces” or “rape culture,” there was ANSWER Me! — “The Only Magazine Worth Hating.” Tell it to your mother. Tell it to the judge.

Contains Sotos' short story "Quality Time" (later used as the first chapter of Tool) in issue #4, with illustrations by Trevor Brown.

Softcover MSRP $30, hardcover $50. Softcover sold out quickly, but as of this writing the hardcover is readily available from Jimgoad.net.

Kiddiepunk product listing.

Contains the full text of Sotos' Home, although the description implies that some of Salerno's accompanying images are omitted.

Original publisher's description:
Prévenons tout de suite le lecteur sensible, et même le lecteur courant : Index, traduit pour la première fois de l'américain en 1999, est un rassemblement de textes souvent atroces, parfois insupportables. Seulement tout ici est vrai. Coupures de journaux, rapports médicaux, sont exactement cités. La réalité est là, saignante et crue, triée avec une prédilection certaine pour les faits hautement transgressifs relevés au cours de plongées dans les bas-fonds de la société américaine. Les commentaires de l'auteur révèlent, eux, en même temps qu'une révolte instinctive, une fascination évidente pour la violence sexuelle quotidienne et ses sources obscures. Le lecteur averti ressortira durablement troublé de cette exploration sans fard. Pour les autres, n'hésitons pas à leur conseiller de détourner pudiquement leur regard. Sade déjà disait: «Je ne suis pas consolant, moi, je suis vrai.»

French edition of Index, translated by Frank Reichert.

German edition of Special. I haven't found the translator listed online. Unknown to me if it includes the original images.

Original publisher description:
Au fait est le deuxième ouvrage de Peter Sotos traduit en français. Comme Index (paru en 1999 à La Musardine, repris dans la collection de poche de Jean-Jacques Pauvert), et peut-être plus encore, Au fait – livre outrageant, excessif, inadmissible et légitime comme le sont ceux de Sade – s’inscrit dans la littérature de l’abjection. Ce livre présente un univers effroyable où le sexe se confond avec la pornographie. Les descriptions détaillées d’actes sexuels (vécus ou fantasmés) se mêlent à une réflexion parfois philosophique et toujours obsessionnelle sur la sexualité et sa part d’ombre, prisme permettant de décrire la noirceur de notre humanité. La narration polyphonique ménage une troublante ambivalence narrative et morale. Le collage de coupures de presse, descriptions de talk-shows, références à des œuvres artistiques, forme un système au plus près de la réalité, pointant du doigt la fascination de nos sociétés occidentales pour les faits-divers les plus abjects. L’auteur n’épargne ni ses contemporains, le registre autobiographique laissant transparaître un désespoir retenu. La construction rigoureuse sert une écriture remarquable, brutale. Comme Sade, Peter Sotos entraîne son lecteur hébété dans un univers totalitaire, hanté par la quête de la vérité.

French edition of Tick, translated by Laurence Viallet.

Original publisher description:
Égoïste, infime, troisième ouvrage de Peter Sotos traduit en français, offre une nouvelle plongée dans l’aliénation sexuelle. Dans ce livre, son texte le plus autobiographique à ce jour, Peter Sotos mêle souvenirs et fantasmes, le flux de conscience de l’auteur/narrateur décrivant ses excès sexuels dans les bars gay, son obsession pour des photos qu’il collectionne, sa fascination pour la dégradation, la violence… La narration discursive produit une sorte de palimpseste alternant récit, retranscriptions d’émissions télévisées, méta- discours, fausses et vraies interviews, échappées philosophiques, essais critiques. La figure de Lesley Ann Downey, jeune victime des tueurs de la Lande dans l’Angleterre des années 1960, hante le livre, le texte tournant autour d’elle à la manière d’une spirale centrifuge. Sotos continue de chercher à débusquer « la vérité » quand d’autres détournent le regard, et démasque la pornographie larvée dans les lamentations publiques des familles endeuillées, ou dans la couverture médiatique de crimes sexuels sensationnels. La simplicité de l’écriture, proche de l’oralité, la spontanéité de la libre association d’idées confèrent au récit une troublante sincérité qui l’impose comme l’œuvre la plus poignante écrite à ce jour par Sotos.

French edition of Selfish, Little, translated by Laurence Viallet.

Pure #3 solicits three video compilations to accompany the zine. How many of these were actually completed and distributed, much less what they might have contained, is unknown to me. I presume they would have been "mixtape"-type videos in the vein of Come Organization's Ultra series or SPK's Despair, but consisting of material similar to that found in Buyer's Market and Sotos' other audio releases. One hopes, anyway, it wouldn't consist of the type of material for which he was arrested.

The final page of Pure #2 features a solicitation for two issues of SS, apparently another zine expanding on Sotos' interest in Nazi atrocities, while #3 advertises "SS products" for sale. Presumably, Sotos' arrest put an end to this project, and such themes have not been a significant focus of his subsequent work.

Playground Sex is a novel (possibly unfinished) which Sotos was reportedly working on in the late 1990s and early 2000s. For whatever reason, it was never published. Extracts were published in the Timeless Peter Sotos Special, but the full book never appeared in print. Recently, a manuscript was posted online with Sotos' blessing.

The cover illustration found in Timeless (pictured) is by Miguel Angel Martin, a noted fan of Whitehouse and Sotos.