Lots and Lots of Serial Killings: A Review of Michael J. Seidlinger's My Pet Serial Killer

I usually write reviews to get people thinking about books that I love, but I wanted to talk about Michael Seidlinger’s My Pet Serial Killer for different reasons. Mind you, I do love this book. However, I think there is a significant chance that this book will be misunderstood by a lot of people.

I think there will be an easy tendency to give into with this book to dismiss it as ‘serial killer fiction.’ People could easily spend their time focused all on that, like they did with American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. After all, it does involve serial killings — lots and lots of serial killings:

Hazel with her, big surprise, hazel eyes had that cherry flavor and he used saw blades he found in the alley on the way to her apartment.

Dawn was a musician of some sort, or at least she wanted to be. He talks about how she tasted wrong, just wrong, not like any of the others, and how he reacted, one end of the guitar as far into her as possible before she couldn’t take any more.

Hannah was his second gunshot. He got the gun barrel really deep inside her and he’s talking about how she really liked it, “Didn’t even ask if it was loaded or not,” and how she was honey-flavor too. The trigger pulled he made sure to be out of there in no time.

Ingrid was tattooed in all the wrong places but had the flavor of strawberry; her clitoral hood pierced, he tasted her for what felt like an hour, her moaning and loving it, gripping the back of his head, smothering his face with her flavor, as she oozed out more, mid orgasm, ecstatic…He did a little piercing her, piercing there, and she enjoyed it until he took the piercing gun right inside of her and pierced something that wasn’t meant to be pierced.

It is graphic. It is horrifying. However, there is much more going on.

To me at least, this book isn’t really about serial killing. It’s about Claire, nightmarish, frightening Claire. Claire is a forensic student who finds Victor, the serial killer, and makes him her pet. She houses him, finds him victims, and tells him what to do. She takes control of her pet serial killer and makes him satisfy her desires:

I’m wanting him to say it, and say it again. One more time.

He’s hesitating so I begin to pull him away but then he buckles, “I’m yours! I’m yours!” And then I’m telling him it’s all easy if you’re willing to do everything I say. As long as he lends every inch of himself as well as every aspect of his work, to me, everything will be taken care of. He’ll never be found and I’ll do all the finding for him.

No one will ever be the same.

*

The mystery will consume everyone and I’m the only one that’ll have known every inch. I’ll have seen everything before it turned into common knowledge. I’ll have been there, telling him what to erase and what to keep. And I’ll be saying to him every line that no one else will hear.

Claire is cold, though certainly is passionate at moments. She views people clinically, pondering how unseeing they are of each other and themselves, thoughtlessly performing roles that are mechanistic and pitiful. They have no ‘fight’ in them, and she needs someone who does. The important question is whether Victor has enough ‘fight’ within him to satisfy Claire . . . or whether anyone does.

Seidlinger has a great deal of subtlety in My Pet Serial Killer. It seems so easy to only see the killing, dramatically rendered as it is, and to not consciously register what lies beneath. I think readers will get it all on some level, but perhaps not at the forefront of their minds. Instead, I think they could get caught up in the surface happenings and only talk of this as a ‘serial killer book.’ To me, that would be a mistake. It would miss everything.

In summary, if I have one piece of advice to give you when reading My Pet Serial Killer, it’s pay close attention. Don’t assume that this is just a slasher-thriller, because it’s not. There are devious psychological manipulations going on while you read, and they reach much further than the confines of the pages. Like so many in the book, if you aren’t careful, Claire will be doing things to you as you read that you won’t even begin to guess at.  Victor would certainly tell you, there are consequences to only seeing Claire’s surface instead of ‘finding’ her.

The Highest Classes of Saints are Reserved for Purely Imaginary People: A Review of Kyle Muntz's VII

This may or may not be off topic, but I’m not much for the modern trend of biography and memoir. As interesting as some people can be, I spend enough of my day with facts. When I read I much prefer the dark possibilities and speculations that only fiction can provide. Or, at least I imagine that such fictional possibilities are more interesting than things actually happening in the world.

This caused me to have some initial interest in Kyle Muntz’s VII. I admit, my aversion to actual biography makes the idea of fictional autobiography particularly amusing. The idea struck me as intriguing, and I only became more intrigued as I read this story of a possibly demented playwright, Edward, from a Europe of a past that never was.

After all, those who’ve heard of the Church of Discordia know that the highest classes of saints are reserved for purely imaginary people because they are more capable of perfection than real people. I thought that fictional autobiography would similarly have the possibility to be infinitely more interesting than the biography of anyone who ever lived, not being limited to things that actually happened and all.

Though, I must admit that this was just my initial reason for being interested in VII. As I read I found many more reasons for being interested. For one thing, the book is like a dark dream, twisting and shifting in unfathomable and often surreal ways. Just consider one of my favorite passages from when the main character, Edward, goes to the castle of one of his patrons:

“But what is this place?” I asked. “Wandering for only a few hours, I have gone many inconceivable places. How is it possible?”

“You do not know?” The Baron slapped his fist upon the table and brought his wrist to his mouth, eradicating the foam there. “You are aware, correct, that I am a rich man?”

“Absolutely.”

*

He leaned backwards to belch. “I am so wealthy that I have purchased all the world!”

“What do you mean?”

“My castle,” he said, “is not a single construction, but rather a compound of structures, originally separate. They were combined, by magic, to one building—and that intersection of place, unified so as to be passable from within, is my castle. It is so immense that one could wander for years and never go to the same place twice.”

*

“How is this possible?”

He threw up his arms once more. “It is not!”

Frankly, I found the writing in VII to be strangely reflective of the character. Often, the character himself is just as dark and twisted as both the prose of the novel. He is violent and debauched, and that is likely some of his finer points. The plays he writes apparently illustrate even more darkness dwelling within him. A passage from a pamphlet regarding one of Edward’s plays that accompanies one of the autobiographical sections demonstrates this amply:

In a vague sense, the play chronicles of the sexual adventures of an unnamed character I will call The Fool, a garish character donning decorative mask and eccentric shifting costume. Like the playwright’s recent work, the narrative mirrors, to an unrivaled extent, the aesthetics of a dream. None will deny the strength of the man’s pen, but it has fallen to such depravity that only the most despicable mind should take note.

*

The Fool stands before the doors of an immense castle. A ring of women surround him, garbed in thin sheets of white material. When he requests admittance, the women reply that he will be shown inside only if he is capable of pleasuring them all. He readily consents. Thus, the shrouds are cast into the air, and the women—girls, really—proceed to fellate him, one at time, for many minutes.

When one thinks it can go on no longer, the doors of the castle burst open, and the Master appears, riding atop the statute of a phallus, pulled by another group of attractive young women. In anger, he questions The Fool as to the nature of his present visit.  The Fool does not answer aloud, but whispers his response into a maiden’s ear, for it to be relayed to his intended recipient. Suddenly, the Masterbursts into laughter, leaps to the ground, throws off his robes, and sets into the women himself.

From the side of the stage, a shadow appears, clad all in black, and begins to whip them. Their cries of pain coalesce into something like music. Abstract dancing begins. The Fool, producing a cord of steel orbs, inserts them unspeakably into one girl as two others service his eager nether region. The Master, still laughing, orders his person covered some species of nefarious jelly.

Not being one of a person who thinks I need to be able to like a character, I was fascinated because I didn’t like Edward. He is depraved and strange, and utterly captivating.

Now, I would not claim that I completely understood VII. I definitely enjoyed reading, but I think this is a very complex work that demands multiple readings to be able to fully appreciate all the complexities woven and hidden within. I am reminded of works like Thomas Pynchon’s V. and Kathy Acker’s Empire of the Senseless and think enthusiasts of either would find VII to be an interesting pairing with such works, or would simply enjoy VII completely on it’s own.

Either way, whether you are familiar with such unusually fluid and shifting works as V. or Empire of the Senseless, I would recommend checking VII out. It may be a complex read, and may have the tendency to disturb you on occasion (which was just another plus as far as I was concerned, but not everyone is me), but there is some highly impressive writing going on here. You really have to read it yourself to be able to get a grip on it.

If you would like a peek into the dreary future of social networking, you should read this book.

We live in a bizarre generation. That is a fact. The awe and confusion that older generations have in the face of our quick-adapting, technologically saturated youth is immeasurable. It is also something well noted; nobody denies the reality that we grow up now immersed in technology or that information is increasing at an insanely exponential rate. Something that is perhaps less seriously mulled over is the effect of this culture on the personalities of today’s youth. The desocializing effect that Facebook and Twitter have, the dichotomy created between online and “IRL,” and the nurturing of the self-absorbed ego that now occupies the center of attention in your own social network are all usually jokes; the kind made about your friend who spends too much time online. But those jokes take on a real value in Michael J. Seidlinger’s new work In Great Company.

In Great Company is a bizarre book. It wavers between being the personal journal of a guy obsessed with his various internet handles  and the battle log of a commander at war, self-indulgent and intent on destroying everyone around him. It is easy to hate the narrator of the text. He, himself, comments on that often. But what he is demonstrating is important and the hatred perhaps comes from a minor degree of self-recognition (and latent self-loathing). Seidlinger has created a character that takes all of the qualities that I suggested earlier (effects of the Internet) and develops them to extreme levels. The disgust provoked by this character, in my case, is really a fear of becoming him.

Early on the narrator professes: “I can only / Quantify moments here, online.” The absorption of the self into an identity on a social network is the only real “event” in the text. Nothing is happening externally. The action is all within the narrator. He speaks to this transformation from human to handle frequently and alludes to an inability to reintegrate into life outside the web with satisfaction: “I am counting / On the unpredictability of the / Digital surf to give me the / Experiences I can no longer get / On my own.” The easily felt repulsion for this character turns into sympathy when you start to look upon him as a social eunuch, removed from the joy of engaging in real-world, fruitful interaction. You can further poke holes in this self-absorbed identity via the errors in the text (mostly, typographical; likely, unintentional), a further reminder that the intimidating voice that speaks is human after all, and like many college-degree bearing students who majored in English or creative writing, he makes typos.

As the text progresses, the confusion between cyber identity and real life intensifies, particularly with the introduction of the “virus.” A trifold interpretation of “virus” as a literal ailment that is contracted and spread, a digital corruption that likewise infects, and as a social disease of cyber obsession (the undoing of the normal functioning personality) makes the narrator’s (and most young readers’) condition very real. The hyper formation of a constructed identity eventually culminates in the loss of identity: “I / Can see my skeletal features, / Looking back at me, when I / Look, I look fearlessly. Go / Ahead, do the same . . . You see the outline of your / Skull?”  This skull-like face graces the cover of the book, a sort of dark, apocalyptic version of that blue, outlined head on Facebook.

The risk of defacement, self-absorption, and losing touch with reality has given way to many of the greatest texts in literature. Noah Cicero related In Great Company to Dostoyevsky’s Notes From the Underground. It also reminds me a bit of Augusto Roa Bastos’ novel I The Supreme. But where these novels demonstrate a certain personality type and condition that are universal, the circumstances surrounding them don’t hit close to home for most contemporary readers. That is why In Great Company is so disconcerting. Its circumstances are those that surround the majority of us in this day and age. Its suggestions are possibilities perhaps too real for people aged thirty or younger.

If you would like a peek into the dreary future of social networking, you should read this book. The warning is that you may come out of it feeling a little “disembodied” or “skeletal.” If you don’t, then you are probably in severe self-denial.