Lady: My Life as a Bitch
Book review by Geraldine Bedell in the UK Guardian Unlimited of "Lady: My Life as a Bitch", by Melvin Burgess; Andersen Press, September 2001, 212 pages, £12.99, ISBN 0-86264-770-3. SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE, Nov. 2001, pgs. 9-10. An excerpt from the book review follows.
mwalimu writes: Here is the Amazon UK entry. The book is not (yet) available in the US but some of Burgess's other books are. According to the review, Burgess has a history of producing works that challenge the limits of what is acceptable in children's/teen's literature, and this is no exception. No correlation to the Disney character of the same name.
"There's controversy of a different kind stirred by another children's fantasy, 'Lady: My Life as a Bitch' by Melvin Burgess [...] His new book is similarly uncompromising in its portrayal of the attractions of an anti-social lifestyle. In this case, a disaffected teenage girl who sleeps around and drinks finds herself transmogrified into a dog, and finds she enjoys the hedonism of public, guiltless sex. At the last, when the girl resumes her human shape, she cries: 'I don't want to work! I don't want to be responsible! I want to be a dog!' As might be imagined, the tabloid frenzy about this assault on our children's morality has barely started."
For a fuller British review, click here.
Here is the publisher's URL to its catalogue, which includes the whole first chapter of the novel online including the scene where the girl turns into a dog.
About the author
Fred Patten — read stories — contact (login required)a retired former librarian from North Hollywood, California, interested in general anthropomorphics
Comments
Heh. This books sounds delightfully nasty, as well as all too honest. The girl's reaction sure does sound like a lot of the kids where I live (i.e, 'I don't want no steenking responsibility!'). Also reminds me of what a certain set of the fandom think they want when they say, 'I wish I was a real furry...'.
Just wish this book had been available for my English class in high shcool instead of that piece of swill 'Go Ask Alice'.
Anybody else out there want to comment on an article outside the usual flame-war inducing remarks?
Ardashir
Well let me be the first...
I do get scared when "Furs" say, "I wish I was a real Furry" or "I wish the world of furry was reality... *SIGH* ~.~"
Sounds like a good book.
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