Hogg: A Novel
First written thirty-five years ago and completed days before the Stonewall riots in New York, Hogg is one of America's most famous "unpublishable" novels. It recounts three horrifically violent days in 1969 in the life of truck driver and rapist-for-hire, Franklin Hargus. Narrated by his young accomplice, this novel portrays a descent into unimaginable depravity, a hell comprised of the filth and brutality civilization exists to forget. What transforms this nightmare into literature is Delany's refusal, faced with our moral anxieties, to mutilate his appalling creation. Hogg's monsters wear our faces, possessing the human complexities of intense loyalty, perverse admiration, and an integrity of pure that pity becomes betrayal. No reader can be prepared for such a story. It is a stunning achievement.
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Community Reviews
This is definitely one of the most disgusting, shocking, and overwhelming books I've ever read. There were times when I literally had to put the book down and take some breaths to ease my nausea. Some summaries mischaracterize the 11 year old narrator's complicity in all that happens in this novel, which is perhaps one of the most perplexing aspects of the novel itself. But I must admit that when I finally got past all of the horrors of the story and made it to the end, I was rewarded with a surprisingly poignant message about race, childhood trauma, and self-worth.
I would NOT recommend this to just anyone. It takes nerves of steel to get through this one. I am not exaggerating when I say that this book will make you gag. I give it a 10/10 because you will never read another book like this, and because the author employs some extreme storytelling techniques that surprisingly come together and pay off in the end.
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