By RICHARD MILLER (Abacus Books; 1984/86)
I don’t know what kind of drugs Richard Miller was on when he wrote this picaresque novel, surely one of the strangest I’ve ever read, but I want some.
Let’s see: there’s a Nazi fellow who meets up with the Wandering Jew—yes, the Wandering Jew, who goes by George. He gives the Nazi a tonic that turns him into a teenage boy, in which form he’s transported through time, anally raped by the Tooth Fairy, seduced by the Greek Goddess Athena, befriended by Kilgore Trout (who’s escaped from the pages of Kurt Vonnegut’s BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS) and roped into managing a burger franchise run by George.
The action ranges from Timbuktu in the early 1960s, where killer butterflies plague the land, to New Orleans in the 70s, where a bestiality porno rag is all the rage, to San Francisco in the 80s, where our hero becomes a sexy woman, in which form he’s ravished by his former (male) vessel. He also gets turned into a snail and chats with Jehovah, a.k.a. God.
Confused? Me too, and neither was I too enamored by prose that often grows quite preachy and didactic (if the author’s intent was to lecture the reader, I’m not too sure this was the ideal form in which to do it). Yet I can’t deny the feverish imagination on display, or the entertainment value; in a departure from most picaresque fiction, SNAIL is eminently readable, even for the unhip.
Cover Art illustrated by Clive Barker
This novel remains best known for the fact that its UK edition features cover art by the one and only Clive Barker, who’s not generally known for illustrating books by other authors (further Barker cover commissions include A NASTY PIECE OF WORK by Graham Bendel and A LIFE IN THE CINEMA by Mick Garris). Richard Miller, of course, isn’t just any author; his other novels include SQUED (1989), a bleakly comedic take on the afterworld, SOWBOY (1991), a dystopian goof centered on pigs, and MOSCA (1997), about a government created artificial fly determined to exterminate the human race. SNAIL is the best of the lot in my view, and a rare jewel in the category of category-free fiction.