the consumer — michael gira

Recently I read The Consumer, which is a short story collection by the Swans frontman, Michael Gira. It’s out-of-print and notoriously hard to obtain physically as a result, so most people these days have accessed it via PDF. I found it from an EPUB file that someone was kind enough to share to the r/swans subreddit. 

It’s a very hard read, but I liked it. 4/5 stars for me. The stories are pretty gruesome and touch on topics like sex, incest, love, cannibalism, and depression. I’d recommend it to anyone who’s into splatterpunk and transgressive authors like Dennis Cooper (who actually praised this book). Nick Cave praised it too.

Below are some of my favorite quotes from it:

“Please forgive me, I didn’t do anything.”

“If I eat her body now, I’ll take her back into myself. But with each mouthful I swallow, I’ll remove a commensurate amount of myself.”

“I love her more than I need my own identity.”

“The air, being blood, is hard to inhale, but I learn.”

“I want someone else to inhabit my body. I want them to use me. My time, otherwise, is useless.”

“My body disgusts me because it’s not mine.”