Tool

by Peter Sotos

Peter Sotos is one of those rare writers who can say, 'The words I write are me,' or at least as close as anyone can come to communicating who they are in words.
--Thomas Ligotti

We do not find in Sotos the customary delusions about childhood misery and wounded lives. For this latter-day homo sacer, wounds are not to be healed but poked and worried until they bleed. Sotos is literature's outcast, carrying stigma like a rat carries plague.
--Mikita Brottman, author of Thirteen Girls

I don't think Peter Sotos' work needs to be upgraded or explicated by anyone, me included, and I think its inability to present the details and factors and signals that would facilitate an argument for its value as literature is one of the reasons it's among the most important writing being done today. It is scary, intense, ugly, honest, original, problematic, profoundly challenging stuff. It's also highly intelligent, refined, and kind of a masterful example of writing at its most rendered and self-investigating, all the more so because its art refuses to give an inch to readers who need something conventionally beautiful, however offbeat and subtle that beauty, to justify a book's assault.
--Dennis Cooper

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Sexuality, American, Dark

146 pages, Paperback

First published February 13, 2013

About the author

Peter Sotos (born April 17, 1960) is a Chicago-born writer who has contributed an unprecedented examination of the peculiar motivations of sadistic sexual criminals. His works are often cited as conveying an uncanny understanding of myriad aspects of pornography. Most of his writings have focused on sexually violent pornography, particularly of that involving children. His writings are also considered by many to be social criticism often commenting on the hypocritical way media handles these issues.

In 1984, while attending The Art Institute of Chicago, Sotos began producing a self-published newsletter or "fanzine" named Pure, notable as the first zine dedicated to serial killer lore. Much of the text and pictures in Pure were photocopied images from major newspapers and other print media. Sotos also used a photocopy from a magazine of child pornography as the cover of issue#2 of Pure. In 1986 this cover led to his arrest and charges of obscenity and possession of child pornography. The charges of obscenity were dropped, but Sotos eventually pled guilty to the possession charge and received a suspended sentence. Sotos was the first person in the United States ever to be charged for owning child pornography.

Sotos' writings explore sadistic and pedophilic sexual impulses in their many, often hidden, guises. Often using first person narratives, his prose takes on the point of view of the sexual predator. Despite his early legal troubles, and the seemingly fatal stigma of falsely being labeled a pedophile, Sotos continues to garner support for his ideas and literary output.

He was until 2003 a seminal member of the industrial noise band Whitehouse.

Reviews

[James Steele · Rating 3 out of 5]

For as short as it is, it's a very challenging read. These stories are dramatic monologues from the point of view of child rapists, pedophiles, and people who otherwise derive pleasure from the suffering of others.

The first story is from the point of view of a man who has just abducted a little girl and is forcing her to do all sorts of unspeakable acts. But hurting her isn't enough. He wants to know her. Know the innocent life he's destroying. Know the family he's hurting by taking her away, raping her and killing her.

The second story is from a man's point of view as he gets a blowjob from an ugly hooker, taking great pleasure that he gets to wallow in her filthy world of drugs and self-destruction while never becoming a victim of it--taking even greater pleasure in knowing that he is contributing to her destruction.

Story three is a peep show, and all the things that go through the man's head as he peeks into a disgusting world of hookers and cheap sex. It's like going to the zoo for him.

Story four is a letter from a man who raped and murdered a gay teenager to this teenager's mother, confronting her with the reality of who her son was. The media portrayed this teen as innocent and pure, a victim of a horrible predator who snuffed out this perfect life too soon. This man wants to set the record straight: that kid was messed up before he was killed, and the mother has only herself to blame.

Five is a nonlinear narrative about a man arrested for possessing child porn as he muses on exactly what is important to him, and that the cops who question him do not seem so innocent either. They take perverse pleasure in making him suffer for his crime.

Six is a startling monologue about the difference between female hookers and gay hookers. Straight, female prostitutes feel the need to prove they're good at sucking cock. Gay, male prostitutes *need* it. Watching them succumb to and wallow in this need is where the pleasure is.

That's the point of these stories. It's not the sex these men need, it's the destruction. They derive pleasure from watching other people destroy themselves, and being part of someone else's ruin. The loss of innocence, of happiness, causing scars that will forever haunt that person, snuffing out a life, watching how they forced such powerful emotions on others.

Their sense of empathy and compassion has been twisted to the point where they do not feel it at all. People are merely tools to be used for their own satisfaction, and if that means ruining a child's happiness, or pushing a prostitute deeper into the gutter, that's what it takes. He himself is immune to this suffering; he gets to watch it from a distance, and that's amazing--to watch anguish, to cause it, and yet be untouched by it.

Number seven is a repeat of these musings, but number eight is a letter from a media-watching bystander to a mother whose daughter was abducted, raped and drowned in a gutter. This story turns all of the previous ideas around and holds them like a mirror up to the reader. The innocent bystanders are not innocent either. They, too, feel this same pleasure from watching the suffering of others.

To imagine what someone else has been through while remaining immune to its effects is to romanticize it. I liken it to reading up on the history of the Middle Ages, learning about the lives those people had to endure under such harsh conditions. We, from behind the peepshow glass of the future, can look back on those times and be in awe of what those people had to go through, and even entertain the idea that it might be fun in a way. It gives us some kind of perverse pleasure to imagine the suffering of others in some distant era.

Similarly, when the press presents the suffering of a grieving mother who lost her child, we identify with her, and we are left wanting to know more. We feel like we're connected in some way. In this respect, we are all perverts taking great pleasure in watching someone else's life destroyed.

The final story, Mine/Kept, makes no sense to me and I have no idea what it's supposed to convey. As for the rest, it's a startlingly frank presentation of the stream of consciousness of people who do not feel the same as you and I. People who actually take pleasure out of the destruction of other people, both physically and mentally, shoving this thought process in our face and forcing us to experience the emotions for ourselves.

We all have seeds of this within us. Think about that. Why do we like to watch someone rise to the top and then fall? Why are the masses captivated by a mother grieving for the loss of her child, and why do they seem let down when it has a happy ending? When the press hypes something up and there is no tragic ending, why does the press suddenly lose interest? Why do we lose interest? Do we really feel relief, or do we secretly hope it turns out badly? Do we enjoy it when it does?

Are we any different from the person who gets off to ruining a child's innocence? It's the same emotion, just expressed in slightly different ways. That's why these men do it. Sex is secondary. Hurting someone is primary.

[Abel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well that was difficult. I'm convinced there is genius in Peter Sotos's writing but I'm not sure I have the stomach to figure out how.

[Anita Dalton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished reading this book at 3:00 in the morning and didn’t really sleep that night. I read it in one sitting and though it only took a few hours to read, when I was finished I felt hollowed out. Sick. Queasy. Not unlike how it feels when you crash after a speed bender. Jittery and empty yet all too aware that sleep is not coming. Parts of this book were like being flayed. I think anyone who was ever victimized finds Sotos a daunting read, but of all the books he has written that I have read thus far, this one was the most upsetting to me. And the reason I was so upset was because that which is wrong in this book is often wrong in me.

Of course we all know that I read upsetting books because I like being upset (or sickened or awakened or whatever happens to me when I read really difficult content). But even within that paradigm I take a beating when I read Sotos. Without engaging in too much self-analysis, I can only assume that at the end it was a beating I needed or truly wanted in some way. This is why I read Sotos. Because on some level we have similar thoughts – a book like this could only be devastating to a person who has already been down this road. To the unaffected reader, it might just come off as vulgarity or pointless obscenity. Despite being trained to analyze literature in an academic manner, I prefer to react in an emotional manner to the books I read. I don’t really care about the schools of thought and the tradition of transgression that many attempt to apply to Sotos’ work. When I read him I care only about my reaction, how he pokes at my own obsessions, how he knows so much more than anyone else about the will to harm and the will to survive harm.

I don’t know how this fact had not jumped out at me before, but in every book, keeping in mind every little bit of genuine autobiographical data he gives, Peter Sotos is playing different roles and channeling different people. He is exploring humanity by speculating about the worst things that go through the minds of the worst people. Because he is taking on the roles of other people, Sotos, in a very real sense, is engaging in psychodrama. And that is why I am so wrung out at the end of each book he writes. His psychodrama speaks to my own worries, neuroses, experiences and fears.

This is purely incidental. Peter Sotos is not writing for you or for me. Never forget that. Any meaning you take from Sotos’ words may have nothing to do with his intentions as he wrote the book. He’s not trying to relate to us. His psychodramas are his own. They are so deeply personal and unintended for purgation of others that it’s very interesting to me the extreme reactions his writing creates, especially in those who find themselves angry at what they consider Sotos’ wickedness.

That having been said, no matter how incidental any connection I have to this book may be, this book was a great emotional purge for me. Even in the extremity of another person’s psychodrama I found little pieces of my own experiences, most of them unpleasant. Clearly something in me is perverse enough to enjoy being poked psychically. It’s a useful pain, I think.

This is a very long discussion. You can read the rest of it here. http://ireadoddbooks.com/tool-by-pete...

[Ben Arzate · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very difficult book to recommend. Sotos is a powerful writer with a lot of talent, but reading him makes one feel like you've had someone take a shit on your soul.

FULL REVIEW HERE

[axlr102]

Tonight on a spur I've decided to return to Peter Sotos to unpack my younger affinity for him and to see how I feel about him now. I've got Comfort & Critique I'm working through right now (which I actually hadn't read yet) though I figured I'd also revisit Proxy which I remember really liking. I think it's best I review this first, it's too prominent in my mind and I won't really be able to process C&C appropriately if I don't.

There's a different wider conversation to be had about his 'Proxy' collection but Tool is imo the beating heart of it. It's like Sotos-in-a-can, all of his biggest thematic motifs neatly packed together in the various POVs and contexts that usually all of his works are set through. You can see the same patterns across almost everything he writes. Critiques of the media, how people process sex crimes, how we think of them, and what it means to have been through one.

The work is in eight sections. One puts us in the POV of a kidnapped girl being verbally (and presumably sexually simultaneously) tormented by a sadistic pedophile. Perhaps not a pedophile in the traditional sense, he's less interested in children sexually so much as he's interested in the pain that'll arise from raping and murdering them. Sotos' depraved 'perspectives' (probably a more apt word than 'character') don't even necessarily seem to be chasing orgasms, as though it's inconsequential to them. Cumming is really just a formality, only thought of in terms of what kind of reaction it'll instill on a mother's face to find that there was such fluid in her daughter's vagina. That's the essence of the kind of sexuality this book explores, something that isn't even quite sexuality so much as it is power and patriarchy in its most purest forms. That's part of Sotos' allure to me, it's the reality of rape culture laid out in its most bare form. It's like some kind of INGSOC, "power purely for power's sake" taken to its natural conclusions in the patriarchal context. Patriarchy for patriarchy's sake, rape for rape's sake, murder for murder's sake. Pain for pain's sake. Kink and sex are two very different things after all. That's what I got out of this section in the cerebral sense at least, that there is much less sex to pedophilia than we really think.

There's another thing I got out of this part though. I feel a bit obligated to state it since it is technically a conflict of interest even if I'd rather not be defined by it, if I should conceal it instead lest it come off as though I'm trying to pawn myself as some token yes-man for Sotos. I was repeatedly molested from 4-6 by someone quite like the guy in One and while he didn't kidnap me so I can't relate to that part, I see a lot in the constant insults and degradation, the obsession with pain and the thought of humiliation. Doing something not particularly because you get off on it, but because you know it's making sure the person on the other end is having a really rough time. It's sort of a trip down memory lane for me, maybe even a strange pat on the head. Reminder of my roots. I think this is a core aspect of what I appreciate about Sotos. He isn't trying to soothe the pain but rather lay out the oblique suffering of it all in its most traumatophilic form and with it the accompanying feelings. It's writing that captures the essence of rape the best imo. Not much that competes, not even de Sade.

Two is a repetition of the same process. We get more racism, though it fits well here. The point at the end of the day is all pain, it would be strange for a sadist to suddenly balk at the n-word. Sotos shakes it up a bit here by drastically altering the framing of the process. We go from being unspoken spectators to the verbal assaults of a pedophile to being comfortably in his mind observing the process almost from afar, like a small window high above the thick sea of neurotic sexual depravities that make up our perspective's mind. Our victim has lines and quotes. I think there's something interesting with the AAVE here, it's this very ghettoized rendition of fairly normal dialogue. It's typed in the usual condescending manner that most people who think of it as Broken English type, but the words themselves when heard are very real sentences that I could envision someone saying. It's a strange difference, maybe insignificant to some, and probably accidental, but it compliments the motif of this story which is a man so immersed in his own depravity that it reflects in how he perceives the world around him. He can't be bothered to hear the woman in his car as anything other than a deplorable whore who will be destroyed by what he does, a fact he relishes in. He envisions himself something like those Atomwaffen posters that talk about supporting drug dealers as natural selection, destroying the street trash by indulging their worst habits so to speak.

In other words, it's kind of the same thing as the chapter we just read. The difference though is that Sotos has shifted out a more societally recognized victim (little girl) for one that most people wouldn't really blink two eyes at (black prostitute). He's almost calling the reader's bluff, taking our horror from the previous and daring us to apply it to someone whom society has deemed undesirable. Is there really that much of a difference between a black woman engaging in sex work for survival and a little (automatically assumed white btw) girl being viciously raped in a van? It's not thoughtless, there's a necropolitical exchange here. I think Sotos' engagements with Dworkin are key here, and it's the reason I felt compelled to revisit him at all. It's hard to imagine that someone just trying to farm shock value would be interested in Dworkin at all. Maybe a serial killer taunt, but I'm unconvinced. I also find his thoughts on Hogg most enlightening, he kind of writes it off. It wouldn't be lack of child sex that repelled him, the book is full of it to a degree that outpaces Sotos himself. There's a deeper artistic manner in which he engages with the subject and I think it's only fair to try to meet him there and extrapolate something from his work rather than to just write it off.

Anyhow, I think it's an interesting juxtaposition for him to make. Not quite revolutionary today, critical perspectives on sex work have made massive resurgences, but even when this came out in 2013 (and I suspect it was written quite a bit before then) it was an important comparison to make when most people seemed eager to whitewash sex work. Sotos forces us to confront the reality of it through the vehicle of someone who relishes in it, loving the pain he knows he's causing. Are we to tell him that he's making much ado about nothing? Is he much different from what the average American thinks of sex workers? Then, is what the average American thinks about sex workers much different from what a sadistic pedophile thinks of a kiddie who just won't shut the fuck up?

Three is a bigger POV departure. The theme is the same but we've gone full circle, from victim to perpetrator to observer. The most immediately obvious commentary to make is "wow it's just like us reading this book, making a trip to the zoo" and that is probably it honestly. I don't have much to say about this one. I think it's just a more obfuscated version of Eight, but I'd be getting ahead of myself.

Four changes the POV to family. We are now no longer a party of the act but rather now from the POV of someone who was affected by it, a mother of a deceased child. This is the less obfuscated version of Two, Sotos applying the same logic of juxtaposition where we are read the riot act for a murdered gay teenager's backstory and then asked whether we still feel sympathetic for him. Do Danny's imperfections alter the sympathy felt? Are they worth acknowledging at all, what is the consequence of portraying victims as perfect little angels? Sotos talks about this a lot, the way in which victims are remembered by their families and media, and he pops the all important question if we can truly love someone if the version we construct of them after their passing is so drastically different from who they were. Do we really miss them? Were it me, I'm not terribly sure I'd want to have my flaws washed away so thoroughly. Lord knows I'm not perfect.

Anecdote: Back in December I'd arranged to meet up for sex with someone I was talking to on an app. I had not quite set appropriate boundaries. Wasn't really clear enough that I didn't want reciprocated oral sex, I liked to blow but I didn't like being blown. He asked and I played it off like a preference. So of course when we're in person and I'm again trying to be way too polite and infirm about it, he just starts sucking it and I don't even tell him to stop. I just lay there like an idiot for a good 15 seconds just quietly muttering uncomfortably hoping he'll pick up on my body language until I finally man up enough to tell him to stop.

That isn't the only thing that happened. I sort of told the guy that I didn't mind "a bit of painal", just saying that so he wouldn't want to not have sex with me because I was a 'virgin' (another bit of a lie but I hadn't had sex in years so it might as well have been true considering how tight I was). Obviously it didn't go well when he finally tried to stick it in and I felt some of the most intense and unignorable pain anyone can experience, and I told him to stop and wait but he just wouldn't fucking stop so I had to start kicking him so he got the idea. I apologized over and over for it being a bad encounter, and he had trouble staying erect and apparently didn't cum much in these things anyway so whatever but still. I didn't think much of the experience as an assault, though I did see blood on the towel afterward. If you splay your hand, the blood was about the same length vertically as from the tip of a middle finger to the base of the hand, in this sort of narrowish slit shape like a vagina.

But eh. Yeah I'm annoyed he didn't stop and all but he was clumsy, like a child. I talked about the experience to a survivor community I'm apart of and some of the people there were confident to go so far as to call it a rape. One of them said something though, that I needed to take better precautions when entering situations like these. Some people interpreted it as victim blaming, but I don't know. I think there's truth to that. I'm old enough to know that dating apps can be dangerous. I'm old enough to know that you need to be hard and stern with your boundaries around the kind of guys that are on these apps. The fact that I chose not to may as well mean that I can't, and I have to control my actions around that fact rather than pity myself for inevitably being bit when in a dangerous situation. I laid this all out mainly to establish a kind of direct attachment to the work, I'm putting my money where my mouth is and relating what Sotos writes to my own experiences rather than just confidently applying it to others.

I think this is what Four is about ultimately. Sometimes you know better, and sometimes you act foolishly anyways. The writing was on the wall with the unwanted blowjob. I still chose to stay and keep going when I could have just jumped up from the bed. What if he didn't get off when I kicked him? What if he forced me down and kept going? What if I didn't leave at all? What-ifs can only be so productive, but if it had all come horribly true I couldn't say that I wasn't warned. It's not the woke radfem answer I guess but it's just the world we live in and we have to deal with that.

What Sotos asks then, is whether it matters. What he further asks is, if it doesn't matter, then why are we so ashamed of it?

Five is mostly a deconstruction of the justice revenge fantasies a lot of people have regarding pedophiles in the legal system, where they're epically owned by the hero cops and then ultimately raped themselves by the other inmates, a truly righteous desert. Sotos goes about it in the usual edgy way, the cops are impotent in the face of our perspective's evil and the inmates couldn't be remotely bothered to give a shit. I think this is the weakest part of the book, it's definitely one of the edgiest and it's not for much in the end. He's just taking the piss. Wow, you sure owned those moralfriend cops with your epic CP collection.

In Six, Sotos exposes me.

I’ve never met an honest [f-word]. They become so adept at lying to their parents and friends and chums that they seem to lose any real personality; instead, they become your best friend by constantly readjusting their likes and dislikes, their opinions and tastes, to yours. It’s all very charming.

Oop.

In Seven, we return to the POV of victim, though he toys a bit with the identity of whoever our victim is. It's more of the questions and interrogation format that Sotos is so fond of. A lot of this is just a repeat of One, so I think a lot of what I've said earlier can be re-applied here. This one's a lot more of a memory trip for me though.

How old are you—can five-year-olds be [f-word]s?

Tsk. There I go, slipping away again. People do say things like these to children. Maybe not with the eloquent diction of Peter Sotos, but they do say them. I'm left with a much more personal version of One. I guess the innate act of this review is a folly for something best left in private contemplation, but I dunno. I've spent a few hours writing this, I've made it this far. Like a rapist's cock I will plunge my mind into this story and I will wrangle from it what I need and then I will leave it behind. I will meet the deeply personal with my own deeply personal. One more.

In Eight, we get the heart of what Tool is about. There isn't much to say, I think it's probably the easiest one to parse and if you read it for yourself you'll see why I say that. There's a reason why something like this bookmarks a work like this. The media frenzy around exploitation, our own consumption, we too are apart of all of this. Exploiters in our own way, looking for the next fix and delighting in the destruction of others. Sotos critiques the oh-dearisms of society harshest here.

In light of the Gazan genocide, I think of Eight. The most personal of traumas have been aired out on social media for mass consumption, ostensibly in a desperate effort to rouse some kind of international response to end what is not being ended, to stop what is soon to finish on its own. What does it mean for us who've left the call to action ignored and have passively observed these images of annihilation? We are so perversely fixated upon the trauma of Gaza, ostensibly to help, but that help never materializes. The true crime ghouls of the 90s had to go through interviews and teledramas, we can get our fix right from the source. We Americans are party to the annihilation. We are no different from the Israeli genocidaires. Shame.

(No rating. You can't really rate Peter Sotos.)

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

not a bedtime story book. objectively, the writing was superb. subjectively, the content was atrocious. not going to try to get into the mind of peter sotos, only to say that this was a difficult read, albeit a fast one.

[Jaret Ferratusco · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I'd prefer, perhaps, that the context isn't mine. I'd prefer, I prefer to imagine, to keep the context theirs. I'd like to keep this away from having it stapled onto a wall and have it considered as my comment on how the news has changed and damaged, somehow explicably, the precise thoughts that are meant to be disseminated through these collected, clipped, hardly precious prizes. Maybe there's something better to do." - Peter Sotos, 'Mine/Kept'

"Writing creates realities." - Peter Sotos, 'Mine/Kept'

Finding a way to begin to review a book by Peter Sotos is the same as the attempt to locate the words for an ending. For me, the trouble lies in there seemingly being no beginning to this world and, as the pages progress, a world without end.

However, and this is probably important, the order in which a writer's history is built can sometimes offer clues as to the beginning. If there is a timeline, Tool seems to begin Sotos' long journey into the greatest depths of depravity ever committed to an ISBN, as it is "possibly" a direct response to what happened with his self-published zine while he was still a student at the prestigious and notoriously outrageous Art Institute of Chicago. I'm not inclined to believe that his zine Pure was very necessary. Something in me thinks the writer himself would not view that particular work as especially important if it hadn't unwittingly set a precedent for the rest of his life. And one can argue there's no telling if it was worth it, but I'm guessing it wasn't.

Whatever set him on the course to show the world what judgment really looks like on paper, I think if you've ever read one of his books and tried to get to the bottom of it, you'd see that almost everything he's doing is carefully designed to make you — the reader — out to be the most significant hypocrite you ever knew: the person casting stones from a glass house. I'm incredibly thankful to the publisher for including the Author's Note at the end of this new edition. And, since reading his work is such a nightmarish puzzle, that Mine/Kept was added to the text at the end as something of a set of notes.

I prefer to think I'm not so judgmental of people, but there's no way around the reality of it happening, and as a species, especially as an American species, we tend to see in others the wrongdoings of a society without holding that same mirror up to ourselves. For a very "basic" example, we complain that traffic is so bad on our way home, without realizing we, the drivers making this observation, are the reason for it being that way. Always somebody else's fault, never ours. Unfortunately, there is nothing in Tool that approaches "basic." In this way, Peter Sotos is very adept at reminding you that every single time you scroll the news, you are being complicit in the degradation of human dignity. Because every lurid story of violence is a sold advertisement created by some network or other, selling the viewer what they're buying, with their subscriptions and money and time and algorithms, and this repulsive reminder is driven home page after page. It is a reminder that life is not what it seems, that things can always be worse, and that, for many others, it already is. You can read about other people's pain, listen to a podcast about it, or watch TikTok/YouTube personalities break down elementary plot points into digestible lists of hurt delivered in your desired style/niche/aesthetic. Any time you want, 24/7.

I often wonder if something happened that profoundly affected Peter Sotos before the Art Institute, or what he was like as a kid. And then I remember, that's not the point.

The point is much bleaker.

And when you finish the last page...

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are few books that truly change the way you think and view the world. Tool is one of those books. The only other book that I can think of that had the same effect on me was William Burroughs' Naked Lunch, which I read in 2011. In both cases, it is not merely the content but the format that is disorienting. A mind used to the traditions of narrative just doesn't know what to do with this kind of writing.

At first, reading chapter one, I didn't even know if it was good. The writing seemed a little lacking in creativity. It was sadistic, yes, but that's exactly what every description of the book I've seen says: it puts you in the mind of various sadists and psychopaths. However, as the book progressed, I realized two things: first, that this bumper-sticker description was incorrect (or, being generous, incomplete), most likely stated by people who haven't actually read the book or did not understand what they were reading; and two, that the writing was actually very literate and very good - even beautiful at points, as disturbing as that might be to think. On the first point, certainly some of the chapters, like the first, put you in the mind of a "psychopath," to use a general term. But most of the chapters I can only assume are autobiographical. Sotos details his own experiences visiting prostitutes, peepshows, backroom pornoshops, interactions with police on the night of his arrest, etc. On its surface, this is a diary of experiences and fantasies. Two chapters are letters - one of which particularly seems like it was written from Sotos' own point of view. The only question is - did he actually send it or just kept it in his desk drawer? I could not find any information on a murdered seven-year old named Lisa Anderson, however, so I cannot verify this particular case. Most of the cases Sotos cites are easy to find information on - typically Chicago-area incidents. So I can only assume this last chapter is about an obscure Chicago-area incident that has been forgotten to time.

The most striking thing about this material, in comparison to works from Sade and his ilk, which I have been familiar with since high school, is the spite and hatred which permeates it. When you read Sade, there is an upbeat, almost joyful quality. In Sotos, you only feel hatred. The closest thing that I have read previously would be Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door.

My final reflection is that this material is more powerful as a parent of a small child. Its effect on me is similar to what people say about true crime for female viewers - laying down beside my son in a warm bed, in a safe house, is much more comforting after spending time in the other room with Sotos.

[Sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

To a large part it's about journalistic integrity, a sort of shock treatment.

[sharaherazade · Rating 3 out of 5]

ok in between now and my last status update on this, i did find out peter sotos was the first person in the us to EVER be charged with possession of child pornography. kind of feels like an honor reading this, in a way. but like, to my understanding, he's not a real pedophile so my diagnosis of at least 1/8th pedophile remains unchallenged. if that's what you're worried about.

but, if i'm being honest, i don't really 'believe' in pedophiles. i think giving credence to this fantastical, grandstanding idea of a uniquely evil, aberrant figure obscures the truth of the matter which is that child abuse is propagated by our patriarchal society inherently by design. constructing and promoting the figure of the pedophile shifts blame to individuals rather than the structures and institutions that implicitly operate on and are sustained by this abuse of power. anyone can "be" a pedophile—in fact, in some ways it's expected. sotos understands that rape often begins in the home—the father figure quite possibly being the most evil and recurrent in his stories though, interestingly, never being at the center of the narrative. of course that kind of story isn't the kind that sotos wants to tell.

i think sotos understands that we all want to be raped. now i'm not speaking in a general or literal sense (although i could be in any other context, take it as you will). even if we don't want extreme violence to actually happen, paradoxically, i think we want in on it. this is part of the appeal of transgressive writing—it sates this desire and, in my opinion, if it's good it will justify it as well. true crime, while probably not necessarily considered a transgressive genre, similarly offers people a chance to exercise this voyeuristic/prurient interest but i think both sotos and i would agree that it isn't a, uh, productive genre. where we would disagree on is why this might be. i believe that true crime is reductive in its appeal—in that it propagates and depends on a particularly reactionary fear of social disruption and subsequent glorification of law enforcement. while i don't imagine sotos necessarily disagrees with this, i think he opposes this general idea of consumption of suffering as entertainment. which like. ok i think you, mr.sotos, are confused about your position as an author of said transgressive work. as an evidently huge fan of transgressive writing, i don't believe that there's anything inherently morally disqualifying about the voyeuristic/prurient interest the genre demands of its audience. i don't think entertainment, or at the very least consumption of it, needs to be 'ethical'.

i've seen people online saying they've reevaluated the merit of sotos' work upon discovery of his admiration of andrea dworkin, but this connection only corroborates, what i believe is, the author's latent conservative intent behind his writing. sotos, perhaps out of self-loathing, believes that any member of the audience—of transgressive fiction, true crime, pornography, sex work, etc.—should be admonished, regardless of their status as voyeur or participant. which is a shame really because his writing is almost very good. but i think truly good transgressive writing not only interrogates and engages in the ugliness of its erotic appeal but also manages to celebrate it, in one way or another. where dennis cooper's, sotos' contemporary, work is intellectually reverberant, sotos' is one-note.

[Vishnu T]

I have read it. Please do not.

The only reason I'm writing this is to say this and also because Sotos probably took quite a task upon
also himself making this, and I appreciate the spirit which made him delve into this topic and also the exposition of how media sensationalizes trauma and violence and abuse.

That being said, I hope his other works aren't this psychologically taxing, because I do want to read them.

[Aaron Schuschu]

Honestly, it re- traumatized me on some things that happened to me when I first came out as a transvestite. And also obviously the disgust I have at all the other stuff. But back to past experiences- I’m glad I moved. Glad I found my boyfriend. But boy the things that happened to me compared to what friends saw as an issue with me…

[Stella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Re-reading this. A lot more comprehensive (less schizophrenic drivel) and insightful with a few quips about his arrest.


Love—love is a very weird thing and kids are so impressionable; so easy to brainwash. Have you ever heard that one song by Madonna?

[Deyth Banger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This guy has graphic and explicit content beware folks!

[Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unlike “Selfish, Little”, which engrosses the reader in a filthy, pitiful world of shame and degradation, “Tool.” reads as an almost embarrassing work of gratuitous abuse that, apart from occasional moments which hint at the author’s later potential, seems to go little beyond anything more than mere provocation and shock. There is very little depth and some of the sections end up repeating the same form, which may be intentional, but the result is tedious.

Maybe it was a fresh take in the early 90s, but it’s only a cut above Jim Goad’s insufferable “Answer Me!” material and perhaps should have remained within the confines of its time. It’s reminiscent of too many lazy power electronics acts that can’t progress beyond the tired topic of “sex crimes” into something more original or thought provoking (this work of course pre-dates most of those projects, but time ruins everything - or rather it ruins what can’t stand up to it). It’s maybe only worth reading if you want to get a sense of Sotos’ own development, and it should be seen as a stepping stone, not a seminal tome.

To be fair, I would give it 2.5 stars if the option were there, but 3 is a bit too high for my standards.

The “Mine/Kept” addendum is a 4-star piece in its own right, however (and was written 21 years after the first publication of Tool.).

[Chris Gugino · Rating 5 out of 5]

uh, jesus. where to start? at first, it makes yr skin crawl. you're inhabiting a really uncomfortable headspace. then, it makes you laugh (the chapter where he describes his arrest had me rolling on the floor, cracking up). and by the end, he's brought you to tears.

not for the faint of heart, obviously.

[Acacia]

It smells like a perfume -- a type of cologne. I shouldn't have read anything by Peter Sotos but I'm glad I did. All of his work smells like a certain perfume, this type of cologne: not really cheap, I don't think. But also not very expressive: it's a dampening smell, and a really very much muted itself. A muted and dampening scent.

I've read Proxy, Pure, Tool/Index/LAzy....