Introduction: Criminal Rehabilitation

Abstract

The term “transgressive fiction” was coined in 1993 by Michael Silverblatt of the Los Angeles Times who recognized a “new” and essentially pernicious tendency in literature. Silverblatt’s original article, “Shock Appeal: Who Are These Writers, and Why Do They Want to Hurt Us?,” arrived late on the heels of Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho. Silverblatt characterized transgressive novelists as those who deliberately include unpleasant content — taboo sex, violence, and drug use — solely to provoke the reader. Silverblatt does acknowledge older transgressive figures like William Burroughs and Kathy Acker as the main influences on Ellis and Dennis Cooper and sees echoes of the imaginative libertinism of Sade in this disturbing new trend. He wonders why an author like Anne Rice, whose books feature violent sex, is widely appreciated while a figure like Ellis is vilified.