Should I Stay or Should I Go?

DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,794 Posts
edited October 2013 in Strut Central
OK, so this has caused some amusement in the Brits thread for a while now, and I collated some of the choice anecdotes for those new to the madness that has been my life for the last 3 years.
On top of the house action, my job has become unbearable since the summer when I had an argument with my boss, told her in front of a busy office that "...I'm not allergic to many things, but bullshit is one of them!" and went home for the day. Although my work was unable to do anything about that (as I was in the right and they were clearly lying to me), they weren't impressed and have since made it their mission to make my life at work unbearable - I'm on report FFS, just like at school.

But I digress. Back to the the house. Here's a few anecdotes:

Housemates past:

The reformed junkie. Excellent guy, gutted he left actually, but while he was here he would have the occasional *lapse*. Probably best thing for him was moving out. Could do rubik's cube in a couple of minutes, works in computers doing maths stuff.

The gay ket addict from Zimbabwe (just remembered his nickname - Cold Feet Pete). Unemployed.

Night-shift guy. Moaned about noise during the day, pissed on the toilet seat and never cleaned up. Dude was 40-ish. Pain in the butt.

The sniff-dealer. Has two kids by his long-term gf, but regularly cheats on her, for some reason she took him back. Unemployed.

The Porn Dwarf. Alcoholic, good with I.T., great bloke when he's sober, but prone to 4 day benders blaring terrible 80s music all hours. Fuck I wish youtube had never been invented some times. Unemployed.

The gambler. When he was a teenager, he spent six months or something sulking and not moving - his legs look like he had polio. Unemployed, but he gambles like it's his profession - goes down to Bristol 3 times a week to play high stakes poker. Had a row with the landlord though and moved out after barely a week.

The paranoid schitzophrenic. Only manages to stay in the house for a couple of days before his inability to do basic things (like feeding himself) mean that he goes back to his mum's (he's 35, unemployed). Absences of two weeks are not unusual, so in this respect he's a great housemate!

Current mob:

The keyboardist IT wiz. Unemployed, brilliant musician, functioning alcoholic, has recently met a girl, seems to be straightening out.

The DJ/Promoter. Officially mentally ill and has lapses into paranoid schizophrenia (not the same guy as mentioned above, and yes, I know a third paranoid schitzophrenic who is regularly sectioned and can play Burt Jansch's Anji

better than any man alive or dead), but really the sanest of the lot. Super nice guy, but not really house-trained if you know what I mean.

The landlord. Unemployed alcoholic, 6, 7, 8 day benders are not beyond him. His behavior when he's drunk is one of the biggest problems in the house. I've known him since school, so on nights when he's lying on the sofa in a drunken stupor screaming his head off, I will fill up a bucket of water, walk downstairs, and calmly pour bucket of water over him, and then return to bed in an attempt to sleep.

....................................................................................................................................................................


One night, a bunch of people start turning up at the house. People I know, but they're mainly friends of the Sniff Dealer and the Landlord. Reform Junkie was still living in the house too. At this point the house still didn't have any curtains in the front room (it was over a year later when me & Porn Dwarf broke down and put some up ourselves after we gave up on 'reminding' the landlord to do it), but I knew something dodgy was going down when the Landlord got a bed sheet and pegged it up over the window - this was usually a sign that Sniff Dealer was going to start weighing and measuring in the front room. He also sold weed. He had 3 suitcases full of weed up in the loft, and when Sniff Dealer showed me, I told him that it was more weed than I'd ever seen in one place. It was just like a film looking at these vacuum packed bundles. On top of the sudden need for privacy, the guys who turned up all looked a bit sheepish. This was a work night, and I figured they were just going to have a mammoth coke session, so I went upstairs thinking if I turned in early I might sleep through the worst of their excesses. It wasn't to be. Throughout the night there was mad shouting, banging, loud music, and people pounding up and down the uncarpeted, raw floorboard stair case.

In the morning, pissed-off at a shit night's sleep, I go downstairs. Somebody's fuck-off christmas tree is in our hallway... just like it had been dragged in off the street, and left lying there totally blocking access to the front room and the kitchen. I climb over that and an armchair is on it's side in front of the kitchen. I walk into the front room, and everybody must have left in the wee hours. Furniture is turned over, empty cider bottles and beer cans everywhere. I see a weird lump on the floor, and pick it up. I realise it's a mouthful of spinach - MY fresh babyleaf spinach - that somebody has chewed up and spat out. There are more of these spitballs and my satsumas have been thrown around. And there are converted coke-can crack pipes all around the room. I later find out that Reform Junkie had scored some crack, told Sniff Dealer & the Landlord, they invited a bunch of friends, and they all had a naughty crack session, a food fight, and somebody decided it would be mental to go and steal a christmas tree from a front garden.



................................................................................................................................................................................................

The whores.

So one night I get woken up by the sound of female voices and the braying, full-throated donkey-like laughter of the Landlord coming from downstairs. Initially pissed-off, I think to myself "Fuck me, they've pulled", and decide to try and get back to sleep. But there's some shouting, banging, and after a while silence. In the morning, after angrily interrogating all 3 of my housemates, I pieced together what really happened.


That night Porn Dwarf (already plastered, second day of continuous drinking) decided to wander round the corner to the all-night garage to buy some cider (living with these fuckers has turned me into a fan of Torie minimum pricing policy on booze I swear). On his way back, two ladies of the night struck up a convo with him, perhaps thinking he might be a very quick and easy job, or more likely they simply recognised how drunk he was and followed him back to the house sensing an opportunity. Porn Dwarf entered the house on his own. They must have stood outside for a bit discussing how they might be able to get money out of him, but at any rate, the Landlord heard female voices outside the front door and let them in. He was also pissed, with at least 24 hours of drinking under his belt.
Once inside, according to Paranoid Schizophrenic, they convinced the Landlord to part with ??20 so they could score him some weed to get them *in the mood*, and took his mobile so they could call a dealer. They took the Porn Dwarf's keys, and tried to take his laptop with them. They also made off with one of the bottles of cider that the Porn Dwarf had just bought from the garage.

None of them wanted to admit responsibility for letting the women in or for being conned & taken advantage of, and I was just annoyed at having my night's sleep disturbed AGAIN, but had to laugh at the cretins as they slowly admitted how they'd been ripped-off.
To make things worse, the Porn Dwarf's bike was nicked a couple of days later from outside the house, most likely using the keys that had been stolen. The only saving grace is that most of the house looks like such a shit-hole they probably figured they had taken everything of any value. Zero chance of the Landlord changing the locks though.

.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................


So my landlord (he recently brought a tramp back to our house and shagged her - that's another story altogether), his partner in crime, another old school friend B.J., and a girl known as Crazy Emma had a bit of an escapade recently which came at a bad time for my landlord who was feeling a bit fragile after a heavy couple of days.

The musician keyboardist guy who lives here had a couple of friends round for a jam. One of them is a sound engineer by trade, and apparently worked on albums with the Rolling Stones & Elton John, but when the wife vanished he was left with the kids and had to take time out. He still knows how to take coke like a rock star though, and proceeded to cut up lines as long as your arm for my landlord who wouldn't turn his nose up at methylated spirits (which reminds me that at one stage when B.J.'s pharmaceutical trading career was in full swing - burying drugs in fields, Jnr - our house had three functioning coke mirrors). The next day my landlord got very very drunk and did an all-nighter on cider. The day after that, he went to Wetherspoons for a liquid breakfast and promptly shat himself. He went to the toilets, disrobed and discovered that the damage was limited to his boxers, so he went commando and wondered what to do with his kegs. He decided to flush them down the toilet. This of course led to the toilet blocking, and overflowing, so he got down on his knees and stuck his arm down the toilet, forcing his shite-smeared kegs round the u-bend to avoid the possibility of flooding the men's room and bringing unwanted attention to himself. He then received a text from Crazy Emma asking if he wanted to meet in town because she was taking her new lodger out for a meal. With the prospect of a free drink on his mind, my landlord set off for town. Somehow he lost his way, arrived late and had missed the food, but they were still drinking wine, so he happily joined them for a glass. And shat himself again. Crazy Emma took him back to her flat where he cleaned himself and his trousers. An unspecified amount of alcohol was consumed. BJ then entered the fray (BJ has since confirmed that, through personal experience, really heavy coke sessions can lead to this level of incontinence). Crazy Emma & BJ decided to go to Tescos to buy some more booze (my landlord cannot go to this branch of Tescos as he was recently barred*).

Crazy Emma & BJ returned from Tescos with more booze, and something else. The specifics are a little hazy as to how or why, I only know that they also had with them a lady of Pakistani ethnicity who announced that she was ready to pay for sex. She demanded to be licked-out, and without hesitation BJ got down to business. My landlord started to kiss her, and at some point in the proceedings acknowledged that some kind of introduction might be suitable and asked her name. It's a name that my landlord recognised instantly - this lady is the older sister of a guy, let's call him Rahmoo, who used to pick on him at school. When my landlord asked her to confirm if she is indeed Rahmoo's sister, her desire to be spit-roasted on the carpet by two strangers cooled somewhat. At this point Crazy Emma handed my landlord and BJ ??20 each. BJ asked what the money was for, and Crazy Emma explained that it was from Rahmoo's sister for services rendered. My landlord, perhaps sobered by his brush with the past, instantly returned his money to the lady, and told BJ to do the same. Crazy Emma refused to, saying it was her money now, even though she was the only person not to have, ahem, earned it. The lady went batshit crazy, screamed that she is a Muslim woman, if her family find out about this she and they will all be dead, and attacked Crazy Emma for her refusal to return the money. Choice words were exchanged while my landlord tried to separate the two. House turned into a war zone, so he escaped the carnage and returned to our house where he found me asleep on the sofa with a stray kitten snoozing on my belly - Who's cat is that? I dunno. Give me a drink, you'll never believe what just happened to me.

What happened after my landlord ran away? The Muslim lady left the flat, and left a note in BJ's pocket that said she had something of theirs which made no sense until Crazy Emma's new lodger came back to the flat and discovered her laptop was missing. Crazy Emma called the phone number on the note and told the Muslim lady to return the laptop not to her flat, but to my landlord's house - MY HOUSE - and said she would be refunded. Crazy Emma then went out that night, got drunk on the money she had taken from the Muslim lady, tripped and fell down some stairs to a nightclub and fractured her wrist. Karma! My landlord made some frantic and angry phone calls and had Crazy Emma call the Muslim lady back and arrange for the laptop to be returned to Crazy Emma's flat. Crazy Emma's lodger went ballistic, demanded the police be involved, but Crazy Emma is on remand for statutory rape (she had lesbo sex with an underage girl), panicked and came to our house. I had to help her check into a hotel because my landlord felt unsafe in our house and ran off to another town to see his casual sex partner (the slightly, no definitely, insane recovering anorexic that my landlord once had sex with when visiting her in a mental institution). When Crazy Emma went back to her flat, the night I was in London with you guys, the Muslim lady threw a brick through Crazy Emma's window, and has been arrested. We assume that she may well be explaining to the police that she paid for sex, that the one person she paid for sex in fact didn't have sex with her, and she wanted a refund, that if her family find out why the brick was thrown, there could be an honour killing. Or several.

So I write this stuff down in case you guys read about a cricket-bat massacre in a quiet suburb of Oxford and I go MIA.




* How my landlord got barred from Tescos; BJ & my landlord, both very drunk, went to the supermarket to get some booze. BJ handed my landlord a bottle of wine and he decided to steal it (down the front of his trousers). Was spotted by security and apprehended on the door. Security promptly phoned the police and took my landlord to a secure room. Once in this room, my landlord began to spill his guts, he gave them a pathetic sob-story that makes Chunk's confession sound like a weather report. He says this lasted a full 40 mins.

By the time the police arrive, the store manager doesn't have the heart to press charges, but the police officers are ready to arrest him, and begin to read him his rights. So he furiously went through the entire sob-story routine again, all 40 mins worth of material about his hard-luck life, how stupid he has been, how he'll never do this again... and by the end of it, the police un-cuff him and let him go! My landlord strangely takes so much pride in this feat of escapology that he still fails to acknowledge it was his own imbecility that got him into that situation in the first place.

How my landlord got barred from the Co-Op:

He went to the local Co-Op to buy some cider. The guy at the counter told him that he was too drunk, and that they wouldn't sell him any alcohol. My landlord says "You wanna know what I think about that?"

and undoes his trousers and flops his cock out onto the counter.The guy runs around the side of the counter chasing my landlord out of the shop screaming "Get out of my shop! You're fucking barred!"


You want to know why he's barred from a bar with music club round the back?
Bottling somebody.
Who did he bottle?

He and his band had just done a gig, and the guitarist & drummer were berating my landlord for being too pissed (he played bass), my landlord couldn't deal with the agro, so he took the full bottle of beer in his hand... and smashed it over his own head! The manager witnessed this and promptly barred him.
vintageinfants
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  Comments


  • skelskel You can't cheat karma 5,033 Posts
    Crazy Emma
    Crazy Emma
    Crazy Emma

    ::Salma::? Please?

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,794 Posts
    skel said:
    Crazy Emma
    Crazy Emma
    Crazy Emma

    ::Salma::? Please?

    No chance! Especially not with police involved.

  • my .2 pence duder: i know age is just a number but.....if you are in your early 20's, all of this is very normal, par for the course stuff and i think you should enjoy the ride. if you are in the older demo, like 30ish, i say get the fuck out of your living situation asap. can you settle for a bachelor pad in the meantime? with respect to the job, i have to say, in my experience there will always be some level of bullshit and other people's mendacity, stupidity or carelessness that you are going to have to deal with and learn to manage...that's one to grow on


  • RishanRishan 454 Posts
    wow. i am seriously impressed that anyone can tolerate this lifestyle. i am extremely grateful to be so far removed from this. it actually makes me appreciate the mundane quiet of my own existence.

    therefore i vote option 3. quit job and get out the country

  • I thought you were going to say you were in a flatshare in Hackney, not a suburb of Oxford. I couldn't be arsed with all that to be honest, it makes my previous behavior as a housemate look thoroughly wholesome.

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    I didn't read all of it.
    Was there a section that explains why you didn't leave a long time ago?

  • bassiebassie 11,710 Posts
    It's been proven that humans can adapt to the most ugly, outrageous and unhealthy circumstances; I would get out lest this becomes your new normal...or not so new normal. You didn't mention a love interest in this Peep Show/Super Hans spin-off series- it would take a special counterpart to not go running for the door with a shit-stained, coke-powdered, beer-soaked, flying bricks and police station backdrop to the courting. Special as in more of the same that embeds you further.
    Stick it out at the job til you find a new one. You might even find the strength, patience and armour to let the bullshit at work slide off your back if you leave the madhouse lifestyle.
    Leave before funny and entertaining stories become sad and stifling ones.

  • skelskel You can't cheat karma 5,033 Posts
    bassie said:
    You didn't mention a love interest

    ...mainly because that's the reason dude is in that situation.

    Sad but true.

    ::whycry::

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,794 Posts
    skel said:
    bassie said:
    You didn't mention a love interest

    ...mainly because that's the reason dude is in that situation.

    Sad but true.

    ::whycry::

    And it's not the fucking landlord!

  • skelskel You can't cheat karma 5,033 Posts
    Not enough votes for the camcorder
    Holler

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,244 Posts
    I voted for "get the fuck out of the country" but that's assuming fresh madness ensues. I would enjoy reading about the following adventures:
    Duder in the Congo
    Duder in the Land of the Soviets
    Duder and King Ottokar's Sceptre
    Duder and the Crab with the Golden Claws
    Duder in Tibet
    Duder in the Land of Black Gold
    Duder and the Seven Crystal Balls

  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,960 Posts
    ppadilha said:
    I voted for "get the fuck out of the country" but that's assuming fresh madness ensues. I would enjoy reading about the following adventures:
    Duder in the Congo
    Duder in the Land of the Soviets
    Duder and King Ottokar's Sceptre
    Duder and the Crab with the Golden Claws
    Duder in Tibet
    Duder in the Land of Black Gold
    Duder and the Seven Crystal Balls

    They all sound like Pornos.

    To me.

  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,905 Posts

  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    You should move to the States. You can do all that, plus it's easier to get guns here.

  • DB_Cooper said:
    You should move to the States. You can do all that, plus it's easier to get guns here.

    or come to canadia, where the health care is plentiful and free and people are mostly polite, even when they are seething with rage.

  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    Canada is nice, but Florida seems to be the exact speed of your current lifestyle. Give or take the occasional bath-salts-induced cannibalism. Hell, you could be the governor of Florida.

    This starts to hit its stride around number 25.

  • DB_Cooper said:
    Canada is nice, but Florida seems to be the exact speed of your current lifestyle. Give or take the occasional bath-salts-induced cannibalism. Hell, you could be the governor of Florida.

    This starts to hit its stride around number 25.

    i think i heard a story a week or so back about a florida man who tried to pay his overdue parking tickets with heroin. [/yeehaw]


    i always thought that it was a 20/30-something British nale's rite of passage to head to north america for at least two years and play the 'clever guy with the accent'-bit until they looked like tom hanks in 'Philadelphia'.

    it's just as good, and just as shit here as it is over there. except you haven't done it here yet. but fuck it, you'll get a shit tonne of free drinks for your trouble.

  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    DB_Cooper said:
    Canada is nice, but Florida seems to be the exact speed of your current lifestyle. Give or take the occasional bath-salts-induced cannibalism. Hell, you could be the governor of Florida.

    This starts to hit its stride around number 25.

    i think i heard a story a week or so back about a florida man who tried to pay his overdue parking tickets with heroin. [/yeehaw]


    i always thought that it was a 20/30-something British nale's rite of passage to head to north america for at least two years and play the 'clever guy with the accent'-bit until they looked like tom hanks in 'Philadelphia'.

    it's just as good, and just as shit here as it is over there. except you haven't done it here yet. but fuck it, you'll get a shit tonne of free drinks for your trouble.

    And a little extra novelty strange for the accent, if you're fetching enough. There was always one Brit running around at college parties acting clever and scooping wide-eyed 19-year-old college ladies who had never travelled further from home than the college they were now attending. Good work if you can get it.

  • GibboGibbo 124 Posts
    Your story reminds me of when I lived in the U.K. in my early to mid-twenties. Maybe not quite as hectic but there's some parallels. As someone already said if you're hitting 30 or above get the hell out of there.

    In fact I've debated moving back to the U.K. but it's stories like this that have me scared half to death. Judging by my own experiences and reading your story stuff like this seems to be par for the course in shared houses.

  • Suddenly the demise of the British Empire is much easier to understand.

  • Berlin
    Los Angeles
    New York City


    In that order.


    I mean shit, try for Sao Paolo or Croatia or Florence or some shit but in the realm of realistic shit this is kind of my everyday "should I...?" question

    Excepting of course the place I'm actually going, which I won't tell a soul for fear of them fucking it all up.

  • LoopDreamsLoopDreams 1,195 Posts
    Living with crack heads is not a stable long term plan, bust a move before they munch any more of your spinach.

    I used to date a Crazy Emma, are all Emma's wingnuts?

  • ElectrodeElectrode Los Angeles 3,134 Posts
    Funny shit. It's quite sad in a way too, but reminds me of nzshadow's hilarious porn shop stories.

    Duderonomy said:

    The gay ket addict from Zimbabwe (just remembered his nickname - Cold Feet Pete). Unemployed.

    I was waiting for CFP to jump in on the drama. For a little while I was wondering what kind of game or sport "gayket" he's really into until I realized he's just hooked on animal tranquilizers and prefers men. Anyhow, run far, far away.

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,794 Posts
    LoopDreams said:

    I used to date a Crazy Emma, are all Emma's wingnuts?

    Nah, all Sheila's are nuts.


    :smirk:

  • kalakala 3,362 Posts
    fooking awesome m8!!!
    i could never live that way-props to you soldier!

    I voted to get the fuck out,move to Thailand,get immediately addicted to ya-ba
    fornicate with as many lady boy/katoey as possible within your budget,
    increase alcohol uptake,become a homeless beach drifta
    invade a cheap motel for a good free wet pool swim,promptly get electrocuted to death by the metal hand-railing by the pool from the ungrounded underwater pool light[BTW random death by electrocution happens often in the land of smiles not just with pools but also showers,refrigerators etc]
    get dengue fever,and arrive home back to yer mum ???. ASHED in an urn.

    PS
    spend about 10 minutes on a rewrite and turn this into a screenplay ,perhaps collaborate with the Mop master allan and send this shit to guy Ritchie or the new undiscovered version of guy Ritchie since guy Ritchie is now to famous to make proper dope low budgie films anymore.
    oi

  • skelskel You can't cheat karma 5,033 Posts
    kala said:

    spend about 10 minutes on a rewrite and turn this into a screenplay

    YES. It's all clear now. The Christmas tree is the key symbol.
    Duder, with steely determination suddenly dawning over his Hugh Jackman-like visage, decides to exit the lifestyle upon seeing the nihilistic debauchery for what it is: the destruction of so potent a reminder of his long forgotten joyful childhood represents his spiral into degradation. But before Le depart, he sentimentally takes a fir cone from the desecrated timbers as a reminder.
    FFwd to the first day of a new life, unpacking in a far flung location, he finds the fir cone in the backpack. A brief smile; throws it out of the window, metaphorical abandonment of a failed history. He wants to face the sun now so that his shadows are all behind him.
    FFwd to spring, we see Duder ambling off to his happy new gig, a balmy morning with children's laughter in the distance, off to TEFL. The camera pans back slowly, Duder moving out of focus now, and then camera pulls back further, refocuses on a small patch of soil; there's a barely perceptible movement. A small shoot breaks the ground, peeking out of a tiny crack in the crumbling earth.
    The fir cone has started to grow once more

    send this shit to guy Ritchie
    No never that, son, Ritchie will have Crazy Emma ramming the Yule log up Duder's jacksie before feeding him to the fahkin pigs

    Bonus beat:

    oi

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,794 Posts
    kala said:

    I voted to get the fuck out,move to Thailand,get immediately addicted to ya-ba???.

    Either I attract these people or I'm a sucker for punishment - went to Thailand in 2001, spent 6 months getting drunk in Bangkok, met a glue-sniffing ya-ba addict girl, had a near miss with a dude + AK47, kept as clear as possible from the many kahtoys, lived in a dirt-cheap guest house with it's own colony of weirdos, scouted the city for record shops by day, played pool for beer at night (did quite well), and eventually fell in with a bunch of journalist girls who let me crash nightclub-opening parties and concerts (still the proud owner of a Mel C aka Sporty Spice Bangkok tour t-shit) purely for the free buffets & drink, and eventually sobered-up enough to book my flight home.

    Yesterday my Dr signed me off work for 2 weeks for stress, so currently recuperating before I go back for re-assessment. Don't plan on stepping foot in my office again, so option 4 is out of the window.

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,794 Posts
    skel said:

    Duder, with steely determination suddenly dawning over his Hugh Jackman-like visage...

    You have a fertile imagination Skel! Although you're clearly intrigued by her, Crazy Emma is a persona non grata at our house for the moment as the landlord has decided he's had enough of her antics and he's been sober for 8 days (he hasn't done that in over a year and for that she has my sincerest thanks), so nothing to report about her for the moment.
    The night is young.

  • Duderonomy said:
    skel said:

    Duder, with steely determination suddenly dawning over his Hugh Jackman-like visage...

    You have a fertile imagination Skel! Although you're clearly intrigued by her, Crazy Emma is a persona non grata at our house for the moment as the landlord has decided he's had enough of her antics and he's been sober for 8 days (he hasn't done that in over a year and for that she has my sincerest thanks), so nothing to report about her for the moment.
    The night is young.

    I'm reading a book called "I Was Dora Suarez" right now. It's dovetailing oddly with these stories of yours.

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,794 Posts
    LazarusOblong said:

    I'm reading a book called "I Was Dora Suarez" right now. It's dovetailing oddly with these stories of yours.

    If only that's all they were :lol:

    Mmm, not sure I want to read "I Was Dora Suarez"

    It's the fourth book in the Factory series (with "He Died with His Eyes Open", "The Devil's Home on Leave" and "How the Dead Live")
    Cook???s notoriety crested following the 1990 publication of what many consider his best ??? and most repulsive ??? work: the tortured, redemptive tale of a masochistic serial killer, I Was Dora Suarez. To Cook???s delight, the ensuing novel caused Dan Franklin, the publisher of its three predecessors, to vomit over his desk. As a result of this reader response, Secker & Warburg told the author to take his nauseating wares elsewhere. Scribner took over the fourth novel in the factory series. Writing for The New York Times, Marilyn Stasio proclaimed: ???Everything about I Was Dora Suarez [???] shrieks of the joy and pain of going too far.??? Filmmaker Chris Petit described it in The Times as ???a book full of coagulating disgust and compassion for the world???s contamination, disease and mutilation, all dwelt on with a feverish, metaphysical intensity that recalls Donne and the Jacobeans more than any of Raymond???s contemporaries.??? Showing up its surfeit of intestinal fortitude, the French government named its author a Chevalier of Arts and Letters in 1991.
    Cook recognized I Was Dora Suarez as his greatest and most onerous achievement: ???Writing Suarez broke me; I see that now. I don???t mean that it broke me physically or mentally, although it came near to doing both. But it changed me; it separated out for ever what was living and what was dead. I realised it was doing so at the time, but not fully, and not how, and not at once. [???] I asked for it, though. If you go down into the darkness, you must expect it to leave traces on you coming up ??? if you do come up. It???s like working in a mine; you hope that hands you can???t see know what they???re doing and will pull you through. I know I wondered half way through Suarez if I would get through ??? I mean, if my reason would get through. For the trouble with an experience like Suarez is that you become what you???re writing, passing like Alice through the language into the situation.??? (The Hidden Files, pp. 132-133.)

    Oh, and a big thanks to whichever bastard voted for Stay in my job, stay in the house, save up for a mortgage, die on the inside
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