Publisher Description
In her mesmerizing novel, Kink, Kathe Koja explores the many dazzling facets of obsession - intellectual, emotional, and sexual - created and refracted by the ever-changing dynamics of a three-way relationship between a man and two women. Set in a gritty downtown urban milieu of late-night clubs and a decadent art scene where all past ties seem severed, Kink is at once spellbindingly erotic and determined - in brilliant studies of character, motivation, manipulation, and spiritual unease - to portray both the possibilities for personal transformation and the dead-end games of moral bankruptcy.
Kathe Koja’s books include The Mercury Waltz, Under the Poppy, The Cipher and Skin; her young adult novels include Buddha Boy, Talk and Kissing the Bee. Her work has been honored by the ALA, the ASPCA and with the Bram Stoker Award. Her books have been published in seven languages and optioned for film. She’s a Detroit native and lives in the area with her husband, artist Rick Lieder. She also runs Loudermilk Productions, creating site-specific immersive events including performances of Wuthering Heights, Alice in Wonderland, Faustus and her own adaptation of Under the Poppy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Characters consumed by their obsessions are a Koja (Strange Angels) trademark, but where they have served as appropriate vehicles for the psychological horrors of her earlier novels, they come across as self-absorbed bores in this stab at transgressive mainstream fiction. Jess, who narrates, and Sophie are young lovers, synchronized in mood and smugly confident of their superiority to the avant-garde artiste types they hang out with-until they let the sexually alluring Lena move into their apartment. Lena becomes part of their "kink," a way of "making your life, shaping it like, like art, by the way you see things, the way you are." The ensuing menage a trois proves short-lived, however, as Jess and Sophie find themselves battling for Lena's affection. Jess spends much of his time wallowing in self-pity and blinded to what will be obvious to readers: that the aloof Lena is working out her own kink, using the unperceptive couple as pawns. Koja is a brilliant stylist; the unembellished sensory impressions she shapes into the matrix of Jess's narrative perfectly express his emotional devastation. Jess will win the sympathy of few readers, however, as his ceaseless examination of his hurt feelings casts his story in the same light in which he ultimately views Lena: as an entity "without passion or defiance, no heat at all, but only cold, enormous and self-contained." Rights (other than electronic): Scovil Chichak Galen.
