Fox, S., 2015.

The Visceral Tear (The Art of Cuntography)

The Visceral Tear published by Oneiros Books is a personal and forthright exploration of female sex. At times blunt and transgressive, at other times beautiful and transcendental. It is heavy on expletives. The sentences tend to be short. Despite the liberal spread of profanities this is not an aggressive work, there is a general feel of positivity throughout. Also, this book is not without a sea monkey's wriggle of humour. Despite its relentless focus the author's tales progress without monotony or repetition. The Visceral Tear (both a gash in the flesh and a drip of bodily juice) is a series of 50 or so episodes that are perhaps best thought of as prose poems. Some read as parables or extended aphorisms, others as journal entries or short stories. The writing is at times careful and contemplative whilst at other times, indeed mostly, more like the fever-dream diary of an erotic graphomaniac. There is a recurrent theme of spirituality; the female organ as a quasi-religion or thing of worship. There are parallels between the author's chosen idol of worship and pagan Earth Mother worship, the more obscure and female-centric beliefs of the Christian Gnostics, and even Catholicism. Sex for this author can be both otherworldly and earthy; not uncommonly it is both at the same time. The reader will find plenty of dirt and blood in The Visceral Tear and within this the reader, like its author, may well find beauty and truth too. It would be easy to reference Gide and De Sade but aside from the sexual content and perhaps Gide's poetic turn of phrase, The Visceral Tear is not really much like the work of either, though it perhaps would sit comfortably alongside them. Sue Fox may well be one of a kind and The Visceral Tear might too be a book that is quite unlike any other.