Paradoxia

A Predators Diary

Lydia Lunch

Akashic Books 2007

Tower Books (Australian Distributor)

Web: http://www.akashicbooks.com

Paradoxia is a powerful and unrelenting experience; it is not so much a book to be read as to be experienced, it is written in an extremely poetic way so even in the most revolting and challenging sections, there is a beauty and artistry. Rather than making excuses for life and allowing herself to be pigeonholed into the dichotomies of victim or perpetrator, predator or prey, good person or bad person, Lunch simply tells it as it is. Her life is a bit like a “law of science”, if you do this, this happens. No moralism, no excuses, no bullshit, just brutal, raw, cut right to the bone honesty.

This is a very explicit book and the sex scenes are unflinchingly described, but these are not to titillate or even to entertain, they are simply to explain what has occurred to Lunch and those around her. Since sex, drugs, violence, abuse (both to and from) are part of her experience, then everything is included and nothing is denied. This is a book which triggers all manner of emotions; it is sad, happy, scary, downright terrifying at times, most of all it is authentic. So many biographies or memoirs are written to reflect a certain view that the person has of themselves, sometimes infamous but usually good even self righteous. Lunch seems to have created a book as much for herself as others, it is like an exorcism, an ejaculation of memories, uncensored by rational thought and simply allowed to inhabit the pages of Paradoxia which in some ways reads like a private diary.

There is so much pain in Paradoxia, when you read the story of the Spanish Nazi, for example, he may be violent, sociopathic and dangerous and yet he is a product of an environment which was all those things and more. The one message that comes strongly from this volume is that no one is innocent, society in its violence and hatred has created a generation which is a product of its venom. The poison is returning to the source. This is not a cop out, Lunch is not making excuses for what is done or has been done, she simply explains why it happened. There is no reveling in infamy here, nor excuses or apologies, simply a record of a life experience and through reading it she hopes we can gain some understanding of ourselves.

Lunch herself is a one off; she was the primary instigator of the No Wave Movement and was a major focal point of the Cinema of Transgression. She is a talented musician, writer and photographer and continues to express the darkness which exists within her through a variety of media. This is a book which will confront anyone who reads it and probably offend many, but perhaps that’s its power, by offending, confronting and even threatening the reader, it makes us consider the experience of Lunch’s life and the experiences that created her.