Invisibility: A Manifesto

by Audrey Szasz

’Shut your mouth,’ Mother tells me. I shut my mouth. ‘Wipe that idiotic grin off your face,’ she says. I wipe the idiotic grin off my face. And as I emerge from diazepam slumber I realize that our train has pulled into the station. Pain, invisible, but etched within me like crystal. Welcome to London St. Pancras International, where this journey terminates.

Genres: Fiction, Horror, Contemporary

54 pages, Paperback

First published February 13, 2020

About the author

Instagram: @szasz_audrey

Reviews

[Janie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Accuse me of magical thinking if you want, but I believe that these rare and improbable incidents truly possess luminous attributes and are manifestations of the divine. I wield my powers with the fury of kindred insight."

[Bill Hsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the oddest, most disturbing books I've read recently, kind of like an ultraviolent crime story told by a psychopathic narrator. As she noted near the end:

If it's easier to call me a sociopath, go ahead. If it's easier to regard me as clinically insane, please do. Whatever is most convenient for you, my dear.

Look forward to more from the author.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should actually be subtitled "The Three Faces of Audrey Szasz." A deviant assemblage of diary entries, pornographic reminiscences, and Christine Strawberry Girl science fiction fantasies, what sets this slender text apart from the usual po-faced transgressive lot is a healthy sense of (dark) humor and a keen eye for detail (I liked, for example, how in the 3-way scene time was taken to identify the name brand manufactures of the character's respective undergarments).

[Christopher Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unreliable narrator(s), unreliable narrative, lots of sex and violence, and to top it all off the prose is stylish and teeming with maniacal energy and a warped sense of humor that really hit me in the sweet spot. I felt like reading it again as soon as it was over.

Twisted but lovely. Recommended.

[Adam Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some girls have all the fun. Another classic from AS.

[Ben Arzate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This chapbook from publisher of transgressive and experimental book Amphetamine Sulphate is a fragmented novelette that's a bit hard to describe, even by the standards of a press as radical as AS.

The plot, if it could be said to have one, follows two characters. Nina is a young girl regularly abused by her Mother and prostituted to older men. Audrey Szasz is a "girl detective," whose story is told through a series of diary entries and documents, that falls in with a group of serial killer cannibals. These two girls may or may not be the same person.

For only being about about 50 pages, this novelette chops up, distorts, and incorporates numerous genres; crime, coming of age tale, horror, erotica, meta-fiction and mystery. The result is a series of stories that are horrifying, engaging, and very funny. Szasz (the author, not the character) has a great dark sense of humor.

The closest things I can compare to this book is Naked Lunch era William S. Burroughs and Atrocity Exhibition era JG Ballard. Both seem to be obvious influences here, especially since one of her other books is about Ballard, but Szasz has a unique voice that stands all on its own.

I highly recommend this book and after finishing this I'm picking up more of her work right away.

[Zak · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rapid fire assault of violence, drugs, sex, a manifesto of confused singularity- guided by an unreliable, but truly engaging narrator of three different variations upon one individual, Audrey Szasz; battling through identities, some that are far more emboldened than the other, yet, together they share in a conflicted and ill-defined displacement - that in their singular selves and the specificity as to make one as a whole self- are struggling to truly shape.


This short, sharp, brutalist fiction (or is it non fiction?) piece is often darkly hilarious, and feels strangely topical; streaked with an almost British sardonic wit that is centred upon abuse, passion, submission, and purely about the rebellion against oneself and how one is viewed and framed societally and emotionally.

I really enjoyed this book and as it was my first experience reading Audrey's work, I know now that I'll be approaching her work as sweatily as the books narrator(s)?- clients do, willing to be knocked about by her harsh, fiery and zesty prose.

Buy yourself a copy, you won't be disappointed.

[Russ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting novella written from a couple different points of view. The theme connecting them seems to be a young woman presenting herself as younger and more innocent than she appears, thus becoming "invisible" and underestimated by others (men in particular.) For a new young writer, the use of language and experimental writing techniques is very impressive. There's also plenty of sex, violence, cannibalism and a threesome that goes very wrong (at least for one participant!)

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

My introduction to the author and I will probably seek out more of her work. Creative, with a sense of humor that lends well to this "genre" (transgressive fiction? I'm not an expert).

Drank a Belgian Quad, czech dark lager and listened to angus maclise while reading this. was enjoyable.

[Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://gnomeship.blogspot.com/2020/0...

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Count me solidly among AS’s cadre in her Oneiric Agency. A stellar stream. Massive credit to AS for publishing this unique work.

[brigid masaire · Rating 4 out of 5]

A twisted little thing. Pretty and poignant prose with a maniacal bent. You'll be enthralled by at least one variation of Audrey Szasz here; hopefully it's not the one who devours your flesh and blood. Amphetamine Sulphate continues to deliver.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audrey Szasz is the real deal: An intelligent, confident, and unsettling writer using a wildly unreliable narrator presented under her own name but with the addition of an identity pseudonymed Nina—a high-priced, underaged call girl pimped by a woman referred to as Mother, described as one might imagine Jeffry Epstein’s girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, to be. Mother keeps Nina under heavy sedation to keep her from minding the life she is subjected to—the sexual plaything of the wealthy and cruel. And the life she is subjected to has led to Nina’s emotionally dissociation from it and notions of morality and empathy. Her dissociation preserves her from killing herself. Other writers, such as Beryl Bainbridge and Helen DeWitt have hinted at the sadism of Britain’s wealthy, and Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson have graphically described the sociopathy behind the staid respectability of Sweden’s fortunate ones, but Szasz deploys an unwilling accomplice to such crimes, ranging from acts of S&M to serial murders. It’s a lot to pack in under 50 pages, but Szasz does so deftly. 

For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dazzlingly blunt and violent, an absurd and chaotic piece of telling modern fiction.

[Ehren W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rhythmic, humorous, violent, disturbing, playful, stylish, and endlessly entertaining. I feel like a list of adjectives is the only way I can begin to do justice to this short work by Audrey Szasz. Is this a novella, a manifesto as the title suggests, or is it merely an introduction? Are we meeting an author, a character, or both? Neither?

Szasz is such a master of the language that she knows exactly how to playfully manipulate it to do what she wants. The words dance across the page. Beautiful prose passages forced to co-habitate with bursts of poetic non-sequiturs; the rhythmic pulsation of witty asides and contradictory musings draw the reader along to the next narrative passage from our unreliable narrator.

Which of our guides through this tale is telling the truth? Does it matter? Which reality fits your narrative?

This was incredible. A stellar debut. I already have her newest work Teleplasm, but I plan on making my way through Szasz's entire catalog. I have a new writer to add to my list of favorites that I can rattle off at parties where people pretend to be interested.

[Jesse Hilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This chapbook, or pamphlet, or whatever, at 54 pages serves as a very good and very strong dose of what Audrey Szasz seems to offer, which is shocking, dark, funny, finely constructed writing about sexual exploitation, depersonalization, and extreme antisocial behavior. Don’t bother looking for a reliable narrator because “Audrey Szasz” doesn’t seem to exist fully. And the narrators she compulsively imagines are all waiting with Wile E. Coyote contraptions to annihilate the reader and not even leave a grease-spot in their place. Life is cheap. Punish the gullible. It’s probably me getting sucked into the lethal tractor beam of Audrey Szasz’s Marquis de Sade charisma if I say I’d like to read everything she’s written. If only I could afford to buy it!

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Podium finishes provide validation. Concrete achievements in the world of attainment and social standing. I wanted to collapse on a racing grid and chew the asphalt with my frozen, blistered lips, driving nails into my skin like some kind of girl-messiah gripped in no-lung, dislocated, death-wish paralysis. I wanted to flail remotely into doll-like immobility like a gas flame waltzing in an antique street lamp just before dawn - to be extinguished - in a world just a shade darker than the one you left behind."

Razor sharp. I’m hooked. Can't wait to sink deeper into Szasz’s brutal, beautiful descent.

[Arón Reinhold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetic and disturbing, a full-on train ride.

[Emmy Carrasco · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5 ⭐️ (round up)

i love an unreliable narrator and an unreliable narrative. trauma, sex, murderer, and whatever labels make you happiest, dear.

[Arabella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audrey forever

[Mark Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very funny. Pretty light otherwise