Bad Language

Bad Languageby So Mayer published 13 November There is no such thing as a safe word In Bad Language, So Mayer blends memoir and manifesto as they explore the politics of speech, while looking at how language has been used and abused in their own life. What is the relationship between language and sexual violence? And how can we make ourselves up in language when words themselves are encoded by a dominant culture that insists we see ourselves as powerless

characters in Oval can neither alter their destiny nor anticipate its shape

in pyrotechnic prose

literature and art have been published in Granta

boldness and generosity that reminded me of the best Susan Sontag

he asks his male subjects

In the way we arrange our sofas

The vision and revision that is her writing renews the essay as a vital form

This is fiction that extends the avant-garde tradition beyond the upper-class experience that it usually chronicles – making it over as an ally of working-class queer experience

’ Lynne Tillman

and poetry

An unmissable debut

brimful of phenomenal lines