Stewart Home: Defiant Pose

Named 1991’s “Book of the Year” by ‘The Face’ and ‘Gay Times’ out of the United Kingdom, Defiant Pose: 25th Anniversary Edition ushers an out-of-print “assault on culture” into the 21st century to meet its relevance in today’s torrid times.

Employing pastiche and détournement, Richard Allen’s skinhead novels get a perverse makeover, going head to head with Hegel, Hobbes, and the heretical tracts of Abiezer Coppe in wild ride where no subject is taboo. From fashionable pseudo politics, knucklehead neo-Nazis, middle-class masculinity, the art world, and literature’s so-called “outlaws,” Home’s targets are mercilessly skewered.

A contemporary of Kathy Acker born from the punk era, Home has worked outside major cultural institutions for much of his career, and is unafraid to call a spade a spade — an impulse sorely lacking in today’s culture.