Fuckness may be the most depressing book I've ever read. In some ways it is a nihilist's
Pilgrim's Progress; a journey for a redemption that never existed, a coming-of-age tale in a world with no purpose. Prunty's 16 year old protagonist makes Holden Caulfield appear like an honors student. If it wasn't for Prunty's marvelous imagination and stunning ability to make the impossible seem plausible and the unspeakable poetic, this would be a difficult book to read. Yet I was entranced with it from beginning to end. I didn't think it held up to the author's other works like
Zerostrata and
Morning is Dead. Prunty's best works do hint of redemptive qualities in his bizarre and often bleak alternate universe. Yet
Fuckness is a powerful and relentlessly dark minor masterpiece. Four and a half stars.
