Please welcome to the world … Audrey Szasz Zealous Immaculate (Amphetamine Sulphate)

Quotes:

Szasz’s dark imagination – brutal scenes of cold sadism – is matched by her intimidatingly brilliant writing. Not only that, but Szasz possesses the skill to find the balance between a piece of dazzling experimental writing that is also completely readable in an addictive, page-turning way.
—Thomas Moore

Szasz’s writing reads like controlled frenzy, a limpid prose which – antithetically – contains all of the darkness and monsters we refuse to acknowledge. We might even have a genius on our grubby hands.
—Steve Finbow

A major novel of perversity and pleasure from a richly exciting new literary talent. Apparently orphaned in a foreign land engulfed by civil war, Tamara finds herself in an isolated and notoriously mismanaged home for abandoned children.

Initially unable to comprehend the local language, she attempts to communicate nonverbally, having seemingly lost the faculty of speech. Unaware of her parents’ true whereabouts – or whether in fact they are even alive – Tamara struggles to make herself understood and to survive in this alien environment where chaos reigns and brutality – or sheer indifference – unfortunately appears to be the norm.

A sinister cast of characters duly appears, including the glamorous but corrupt Director, her overbearingly sadistic partner the Doctor, not to mention the Father – a perverse cleric with a penchant for cruelty – amongst other unsavoury and remorseless individuals, all enforcing a strict hierarchy between the adults and the children (and thus the perpetrators and the victims of institutionalised violence).

Meanwhile, a number of different voices or alters jostle for psychic dominance over Tamara’s internal narrative; through various temporal shifts, rotations and leaps in chronological perspective our heroine’s journey – both geographical and psychological – is described in a disintegrating arc of obscure recollections, fragmented diary entries and increasingly obscene erotic fantasies.

Conversely, these kaleidoscopic projections, delirious daydreams and compulsive diatribes gradually accumulate to articulate a traumatised inner topography that mirrors the devasted and desolate external landscape of a perpetual war zone….

Release Date: 29/04/2022
Hardcover, 214 pages.

UK edition: [[[[blue cover]]]]
https://cargorecordsdirect.co.uk/collections/amphetamine-sulphate/products/audrey-szasz-zealous-immaculate

USA edition: [[[[green cover]]]]
https://amphetaminesulphate.bigcartel.com/product/zealousimmaculate

[[[[VIDEO EXCERPTS for ZI on YouTube x 3]]]

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TEXT EXCERPTS:

They told me that my name is Tamara. But maybe it’s not my real name. I can’t remember anything anyway. I don’t even know where my parents are. The Director told me that my parents are dead. She told me that they were shot in the square. In the city. There was a big shooting there. The people were all lined up in the square, and the soldiers who were standing up on the balconies or lying on the roofs of the buildings fired their guns. They shot everyone in the square. Nobody could escape because the army put tanks at either end of the square so nobody could run away. They all got shot. The Director says my parents are dead but I don’t believe her. One day my parents will come and get me. The Director tells me not to worry. She says I am safe now. She says nobody will ever find me. (p.8)

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I’m basically ignorant and if possible I’d like to keep it that way — illumination is so overrated — and I heard a belt coming down, felt it instantaneously lashing my lower limbs, my thighs, my ass and I didn’t know exactly who was responsible because I was blindfolded and I’d taken too many of those tranquillisers and had too many cocktails and I was probably drooling like an imbecile — I’d been tied to a rocking horse — my tormentors often commented on the youthful innocence of my smile and contrasted it with the perversity of my behaviour — you can put a label on anything but ultimately it’s meaningless — because I am an incorrigible ant in insect time broken burning drowning in the mire of destiny — like all infamous creatures, I have done my share of questionable things — sometimes I feel something approaching shame or guilt — but in reality I have no remorse and after I’ve been particularly cruelly treated I like to examine myself using mirrors — so narcissistic right? — and then they take photographs of me — so we can all remember the contusions that blossom on my skin so brightly, like meadows of lavender in Provence or jacaranda petals inundating the streets of Bulawayo, like a storm of violet confetti — of course they’re precious to me these days, particularly the marks given to me by those whom I love or despise the most and I must like emotionally unavailable people because I scorn intimacy and I have certain needs that must be fulfilled, and I have to select my tormentors carefully just like a designer ponders over their fabrics — yes, I maintain strict criteria and I can’t allow myself to become enslaved to just anyone — not that it would even be possible to give myself away so easily because I have such contempt in my heart for most people — virgo fidelis, my dream childhood, conjuring up images of pink-kneed, dewy-eyed girls trampling wildflowers, across the emerald expanse of lush meadows free from landmines or camouflaged snipers — sinking into cement-grey quicksand — adolescent romance smothered in multiple layers of contaminated sediment — buried beneath various levels of so-called original sin — easing into self-recrimination, day after day — climaxing occasionally — groping soundlessly in the direction of a forgotten sun — and I tell myself that my life ought to have been a bed of roses — on the surface of things — that superficial layer of ice which obscures the depths beneath — I guess it could have been — and it could be yet, in theory — if I could just turn things around — I’m still young, reasonably intelligent, and if I could be bothered, I could probably make something of myself — but anxiety — inexplicably — seizes me, grips my little heart in a vice of trepidation and obscure longing, like a sadistic woman clutching my skinny wrists with her firm hands, clamping them behind my back, or twisting my arms painfully at the elbow, and putting me over her knee, as though I’m still a recalcitrant pupil, an infernal bad girl, who has committed some minor infraction — and naturally, she then goes on to lift my skirt, pull down my tiny black knickers, and having composed herself — I’m wriggling, probably, like a piglet — begins to spank me with unexpected zeal — and if it seems like she’s done this before, it’s because she has — and apparently she likes injured ballerinas, Eastern European waifs, and selective-mute know-it-all brats with black eyes — of course if they happen to look slightly young for their age, it’s a bonus…. (pp.57-59)

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You would love to tie me spreadeagled on the classroom floor and repeatedly stamp on me until you’ve broken my ribs. You call me ugly, hideous, paint freckles on my face, take me to the dentist and pay him to fix totally unnecessary and unsightly metal braces to my upper teeth that hurt my gums and make me look like I’m twelve years old. Barely literate teenagers, predictably outraged by the provocation that my altered appearance represents, mock me mercilessly and pelt me with KFC whilst subjecting me to a tirade of barely comprehensible verbal abuse. They drag me into the road and I am run over by a big yellow school bus. Then I lie in hospital with my jaw wired shut so I can’t speak and my limbs in plaster. Luckily someone has thoughtfully painted rainbows and butterflies on the walls in an attempt to cheer me up during my convalescence. (p.62)

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I hate you. I hate you. Why don’t you love me? You think I can’t give you what you want? You think I can’t turn anyone on? I could go out into the street and get torn to shreds by eighty soldiers in one afternoon. I could have them booting my lifeless little corpse around a crater that used to be a supermarket car park, hoofing me into the trash like a deflated beach ball. I could have them crucifying me with a nail-gun in the gutted remains of the National Museum. All I know is suffering — hate and death. That’s all I understand now. It’s my heritage. My birthright. Our collective legacy. Distilled brutality. I enjoy my punishment. I am a filthy little cunt. I don’t know any better. Look at me you filthy whore. Looking at my crushed and crippled hand? You think that’s fucking funny? Maybe a tank should flatten your car when you’re in it, attempting to traverse a junction. Maybe you get shot right through the skull as your engine idles at an army checkpoint. Maybe you get cut down in a terrorist attack and your body and head are shredded by white-hot shrapnel but you survive it all. I really don’t care. (pp.113-14)

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My name is Minnie Mouse. I squeak incessantly like a little rodent. God told me to gas you then skin your corpse. Your skin so soft, so luxurious. I’d look good as a lampshade. Light of my life. Fire in my groin. Put it inside me. I want to feel it. I need to lose gracefully, like a good sport. I need to step aside. I need a pump-action shotgun and a shopping mall full of unwilling victims. I need a shot of rhythm and blues. Just give me some of that rock and roll music, any old way you choose it. If you wanna dance with me. Takes two to tango. Takes one to know one. One of a kind. One in a million. A million mouths sucking your tits. A thousand fingers flicking my switch. Milk it. Buy it. Love it. Own it. Bought and sold. Used and abused. First hand, second hand, handouts, left hanging, hung out to dry, lay it on the line, somewhere along the line, line them up, knock them down, knock them dead, knock it off, knock some sense into them, a senseless killing, mindless violence, an act of cowardice, a sickening stunt, creaming your pants, egg on your face, scream like a baby, throw your toys out of the pram, eight days a week, in roller-skates, like a pretentious piece of shit. I am stupid and I know it. I am an irredeemably tedious cunt. I am a brat. Just beat me to death with a baseball bat. I would enjoy it. It’s what I want. That would be paradise. I masturbate thinking about it. But I can’t even get close to coming. Nothing will take me all the way anymore. I go to the old people’s home. It stinks of ammonia and excrement. I roll around in their unwashed beds and sniff their linen. It makes me gag and retch and I masturbate hopelessly for hours in futile search of an ever- elusive climax whilst manipulative power-hungry nurses pull on rubber gloves and massage my slender limbs and pour castor oil down my throat until I heave and vomit. It is revolting, idiotic, disgusting, depraved yet utterly banal. I begin to drown in my own sick. I indulge each of my otiose fantasies. I wish the nurse would tie me up so tightly my blood circulation is cut off and then smash a vase over my head and suffocate me with duct tape and a pillow filled with Canadian goose feathers. I wish a mortar shell would land on this building. I wish for air force drones to bomb this town repeatedly for days on end until there is nothing left except a vast lifeless wasteland. A cratered moonscape. I wish for walls of fire to consume this yokel country. I wish a phalanx of marauding cyborgs would stroll through the towns and villages executing any living creature their sensors detect. I hate everyone but I hate myself most of all. I vouch for no one. (pp.131-32)

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Audrey Szasz (aka Zutka) is a London-based writer. She is the author of two novels; Zealous Immaculate (2022) and Tears of a Komsomol Girl (2020) plus two novellas, Invisibility: A Manifesto (2020) and A-Z of Robomasochism (2022) published by Amphetamine Sulphate and Infinity Land Press respectively.

LINKS:

Instagram: @szasz_audrey
https://audreyszasz.com/

Audrey Szasz performing at Prague Microfestival 2021

Audrey Szasz ‘Agent Erdely’ on Nearest Truth
https://nearesttruth.com/episodes/ep-199-audrey-szasz-agent-erdely/

Audrey Szasz on Anechoic Chamber:
https://soundcloud.com/thomas_bey_william_bailey/anechoic-chamber-episode-17-audrey-szasz

Interview with Adam Lehrer, Safety Propaganda
https://safetypropaganda.substack.com/p/safety-propagandist-10-audrey-szasz?s=r

Audrey Szasz on Wake Island:
https://anchor.fm/wake-island/episodes/Audrey-Szasz—Tears-of-a-Komsomol-Girl-erk1n6

Tears of a Komsomol Girl review by KDbooks:

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p.s. Hey. This weekend the blog adorns its red carpet costume on behalf of the brand new novel by master of wordage’s ceremony Audrey Szasz as inserted into the world by new lit’s powerhouse influencer Amphetamine Sulphate. Please spend your local weekend portion checking out the book and its inculpatory evidence. Thanks, and thank you to Audrey for putting together this aperitif! ** _Black_Acrylic, That is a nice phrase. And you’ve come to the rescue of my weekend yet again! Everyone, It’s Xmas in April for your ears courtesy of maestro _Black_Acrylic a la … ‘The new episode of Play Therapy is online here via Tak Tent Radio! Ben ‘Jack Your Body’ Robinson delivers Italo melancholia, Belgian Post-Punk and some new Dancehall experimentalism.’ Whoop whoop! ** David Ehrenstein, I need to read that Adler/Kael piece. This weekend somehow. I wonder if having been wedded to Broughton, one of the worst American experimental filmmakers IMO, had to do with her back turning on the field? ** Misanthrope, Hey! I wondered why I didn’t see on your ‘big’ day. Thanks from the future, buddy. Flit used to be on Facebook, I remember, but, yeah, no sign of him in a very long time. I don’t think I ever knew what his real name was, though, so maybe he’s still around there? The Mexican restaurant portion of your weekend is the highpoint from afar. I hope the whole thing is a blast, man. ** T. J., Oh, now that’s interesting. Rosselini scuttering Duras’s award is somehow hilarious. No, I mean, Kael was very interesting, for sure, and a very good writer. I was an Andrew Sarris guy back in the day when film criticism reading people divided up into those who were Sarris people vs. the Kael contingent. Thanks a lot! ** Dominik, Hi!!! The commenters seemed kind entertainingly coked up this month. Yeah, one more bookstore event on Tuesday. No, it’s at Cahier de Colette, which is a very literary and legendary store. Kind of an honor for me to be welcomed there. Eating a cheese quesadilla is what sex should always be like. Thank you for the perfect Love. I mean, it was kind of perfect, right? Love translating the big review that ‘I Wished’ got in the French newspaper Liberation today into flawless English so I can celebrate or droop, G. ** ryanryan, Hi! No problem, man. Time is relative, ideally at least. Big and good busy on your end, nice. I’m pretty sure that with our little budget we’ll need to stick to hiring actors for our film who live a short drive from the set, but thank you! I’m the tallest in my family. People say the tallest and shortest ones are the ones fated for the most glory. Or maybe they don’t say that. I think they do. Everything is fine with me, just lots and lots of uninteresting to hear about work and worry and forward inching on the film project and seeing friends and all that stuff. I hope your guessed at a chill weekend panned out. Champagne glass style *clink”. ** Steve Erickson, It’s not impossible that the lyricist of a death metal band read that post and realised he should steal that verbiage. Let’s keep our ears peeled. I haven’t seen any Zelensky fantasising yet, which is quite odd now that you mention it. I, of course, don’t know those TV shows. ‘Vortex’ just opened here, and I’ll see it soon, possibly this weekend. I thought ‘Lux Aeterna’ was pretty much total crap. ** Brandon, Hi, Brandon. Nice to see you! Sorry about the funk. I hear you. I’m not in a funk, but I’m in one of those states where I have hair-trigger stress that’s always boiling under the surface, when it isn’t erupting, I mean. Less shitty job! Yay! So your tattoo session is also a first date? That could cut through some ice, seemingly. Should you want it to once the ‘date’ commences, of course. I hope he’s an excellent tattooist if nothing else. Happy that you got to draw and write. That’s where a funk is probably better than a stressfest. Nothing hugely new with me, just lots of film stuff inching forward. Trying to get the point where Zc and I can come to LA and start the groundwork. Mm, I’ve hardly seen anything, although this weekend I’ll see some art and probably at least one movie. If I see anything that should be passed along, I’ll let you know. I hope the inking goes as hoped and the general weekend is the perfect temperature. ** G, Hi! Oh, I’ll try to find that photo. The reading went pretty well, I think. Thanks. You had one too, no? How was yours? No events for me outside of Paris coming up that I know of. I think when I get to LA, I’ll probably do something there. Have a splendiferous weekend, pal! ** Adrian, Hi, Adrian. Good to meet you, and thanks for coming inside. Yes, very true, about the harrowing. Having been making those posts for years now and spending a lot of time on those sites looking for things, I feel pretty confident in saying that about 90% or so of what they write is pure fantasising aloud. Which doesn’t taking the harrowing out of it, but feeling relatively safe in assuming those guys are doing a big, very dark circle jerk changes how it feels to be there at least. Thanks a lot. Please feel more than free to come back anytime for any reason. ** Right. You know what you have in front of you this weekend already, so I’ll leave you to it. See you on Monday.