I Am Genghis Cum

Ms. LeVoit has placed in this relatively slim volume some of the most powerful, masterfully-written short stories that I have read in a long time. I am simply blown away by the sheer talent on display. In fact, it is a shame that her name is not mentioned in the same breath with Palahniuk, Blake Butler, or Bret Easton Ellis because it should be. LeVoit's insight into death, motherhood, legacy and the human condition (how absurd, yet there it is) is given room to run admist perversity, violence and profanity.

"This is "Ichi The Killer" meets "Funny Games" but funny. It is Dorthy Parker meets Peter North. It is me... meeting the beating heart of my own penis and having a soul searching conversation. It is Cody Goodfellow with all the brains and even less rules. It is "I AM GENGHIS CUM". And you thought "The Human Centipede" was funny..."

These are some strange and disturbing stories. The titular story is about a man who wants to ensure his lineage by donating sperm to every sperm bank he can. There's a story about fast food a man investigating employees who develop corporate stigmata. There a quite a few stories that I'm not even sure I can explain fully. A lot of these stories are disturbing, so consider yourself warned.

My husband and I chanced upon Violet Levoit at a reading in Tacoma Washington and she absolutely floored us! Her stories explore the darkest realms of the human psyche and still leave you laughing. She is brilliant!!

Don't be thrown by the cover art, or the title for that matter - this is some seriously good writing on some odd, somewhat disturbing trains of thought. I loved it. If you like literate oddball fiction, maybe you will too. Pick this up.

(All F-bombs and naughty words have been altered to appease Amazon) Sex relations and human reproduction can be pretty f[lar]ed up. As it turns out, so can Violet LeVoit. Her horrors begin with the title story, a bitter sleazeball so inspired by Genghis Khan’s genetic influencing of Asia and the Middle East that he journeys between sperm banks to spread his DNA with the same mindset of someone poisoning a lake with cholera, all while avoiding a mysterious East-Asian man who seems to follow him everywhere. Another favorite comes from “10 Darlings and a Handbag,” where an expectant mother agonizes over the decision to birth and raise her child, or to harvest its body and her uterus for organ donation and handbags, in a story that joins “A Modest Proposal” with Ed Gein’s choice in DIY female fabrics. While other great stories populate this book (ever read about a fetus dreaming of his future bleeding urethra?), I must give special mention to “A Reading From The Author,” easily one of the best metafictional stories I ever read, where an author breaks from his self-admitted boring story, written for creative writing MFA elitists, to muse on how he wants to sleep with his audience and turn a blonde audience member into a character he can control. The unwilling blonde refuses to play puppet, and f[lapp]ery of perspective and style ensues. Much as I wish I could tag this praise with some critique, I can’t find nits to pick. All I can do from here is gush, but to spare anyone from reading “Why I Am Genghis C[alci]um is a Book You Starve Yourself by Not Reading: A Doctoral Thesis,” the greatest part of these stories is the gleefully venomous language loaded in nearly every page. One of my favorite examples, from the title story: “I wait until she’s gone. I turn to the camera. ‘I will r[elat]e you,’ I say to the little red light. ‘I will punch into your womb like a bolt into cattle brains. I will infect your womynspace and your herbal tea and your sacred clothcatcher handsewn menstrual pads with the force of my seed. I will give you a Trojan horse of a son and I will bring guns and p[opc]orn and heartless f[art]ing into your safe space for womyn…’” Stabbing humor, twisted storytelling, this is a book to enjoy with the blackest coffee brewed in mourning mothers' tears.

Okay, obviously, you shouldn't buy this book if the title/cover art offends you. No one would you expect you to like it anyway. Please do not buy this book if you fulfill that conditional. As for the rest of you - GET ON IT. These are some of the best short works you'll read all year. These are dangerous stories. Don't call them, they'll call you. In fact, they'll probably kick down your door without provocation, no questions asked. These stories are so effing good, but they will give you pause. They ought to give you pause - not just because of their subject matter or their abrasive, unforgiving nature, but because of how dense and well-written they are. Levoit has a talent for making her stories "turn," like an optical illusion that reveals hidden dimensions once viewed from a different angle. More importantly, these aren't just plot twists I'm talking about - the very narrative of each story is liable to eviscerate its internal organs at a moment's notice. Then eviscerate yours. These stories are sea cucumbers armed with swords. They'll cut you open and invite weird crustaceans into the walls of your gut. Point being, it's all very exciting and I look forward to reading more from this author.

The best way to describe this book, it's what I wish the news were like. Human interest stories with a brain, not a sopping 'touch me here' piano concerto. I've met people like these characters. Real people. Walking around people. Most of them are wearing normality masks. Reading Violet's stories, I am relieved that mask is dropped in the gutter and Genghis Cum is planning an invasion of my uterus. I knew it! I want her to write movies. Take over Cosmopolitan magazine. Shake babies and kiss hands. Plastic babies, that is.