Blood and Guts in High School
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Plot
Blood and Guts in High School describes the plight of Janey Smith, a ten-year-old girl who is spurned by her father, with whom she is sexually involved, when he takes a new lover. Fleeing to New York, she joins a gang and is kidnapped by a Persian slave trader who locks her away. When Janey develops cancer, she is released and travels to Tangiers, where she wanders the desert with Jean Genet until they are imprisoned.
Summary
Blood and Guts in High School is the story of Janey Smith, a ten-year-old American girl living in Merida, Mexico, who departs to the U.S.A. to live on her own. She has an incestuous sexual relationship with her father, whom she treats as “boyfriend, brother, sister, money, amusement, and father”. They live together in Mexico until another woman begins to interest Janey’s father. Janey realizes he hates her because she limits him and he wants to have his own life. Her father agrees to let her go and puts her into a school in New York City. For a period of time her father sends her money but later she begins to work to get by. She has many sexual partners. She seems to be addicted to sex and does not care who she sleeps with. In New York City she joins a gang, the Scorpions. One day the group crashes a car while running from the police and Janey is the only one who survives it, almost unharmed. Afterwards she begins to live in New York slums. Two thieves break into her apartment, kidnap her, and sell her into prostitution. She becomes the property of a Persian slave trader who keeps her locked up, trying to change her into a prostitute. We get the account of Janey’s dreams, visions, journal entries and poems that she writes while being held captive. Shortly before the kidnapper is to release her to become a prostitute for him, she discovers she has cancer. The slave trader lets her go and she illegally goes to Tangiers. There she meets Jean Genet, the talented, iconic French writer, and they develop a relationship. Janey and Genet travel through North Africa and stop in Alexandria. Genet treats Janey badly, but the worse he treats her the more she loves him. He decides to leave her. Janey gets arrested for stealing Genet’s property. Shortly afterwards he joins her in prison. A rebellion breaks out and they are both thrown out of Alexandria. They travel together for some time, then Genet gives Janey some money and leaves. Soon after they part company, Janey dies.
Characters
- Janey Smith
- Jean Genet
- Tommy
- Persian Slave Trader
Storytelling technique
In Blood and Guts in High School, Kathy Acker uses the technique of collage. She inserts letters, poems, drama scenes, dream visions and drawings. This creates a challenging text with a disturbed linearity. Acker freely admitted to using plagiarism in her work.
Trivia
- Blood and Guts was banned as pornographic in West Germany and South Africa.
- Like her heroine, Janey, Acker also died of breast cancer twenty years after writing Blood and Guts. Many of Acker's heroines have or fear getting cancer.
- Laura Parnes has created a "re-imagining" of this novel using video.
- Is featured in Peter Boxall's book, 1001 books you Must Read Before You Die and The Little Black Book of Books.
