Transgressive Fiction

At once praised as brilliant stylists and dismissed as crass opportunists, transgressive authors -- such as Kathy Acker, Chuck Palahniuk, Bret Easton Ellis, Martin Amis, Angela Carter, and Irvine Welsh -- have routinely baffled critics. Arguing about 'message, ' critics failed to identify this school as a continuation of the classic Menippean style, which opposes everything and proposes nothing. Like Ovid, Swift, or Rabelais, these writers present a view of life drawn from the candid and carnal folk sensibility praised by Bakhtinches At the same time, they depict bizarre sex, casual drug use,…