Ascher/Straus

ABC Street is Volume One of what is potentially the twenty-five year autobiography of a woman writer who looks outward rather than inward: the chronicle of her life, but not of herself. It doesn’t resemble any writer’s journal because it is a novel, because it suggests a fresh way for a writer to look at life as fiction and because the issues raised by writing such a novel are one of its principle subjects.

Ascher/Straus’s first traditionally published novel ("underground" edition in 1982) after creating public fiction-events challenging the nature of what a book can be. The carry-over into The Menaced Assassin is the sense of a porous tale as sticky as a ball of cultural silly putty still bouncing after twenty-plus years.

"...a collection of interlocking stories...arty, sexy, rich in imagery and philosophical musings."

"...another creation of tremendous sensual immediacy, exploded familiarity and haunting perversity from the authors of The Other Planet and The Menaced Assassin."

“Ascher/Straus have translated a post-modern aesthetic into a pretty definitive statement about the post-modern experience. [And] considering that a whole generation of artists and intellectuals have been floundering in it, trying to define it, describe it or run away from it, it’s worth noting that Ascher/Straus pin it down as astutely as they do . . . . ”