AustLit

Futuristic bioweapon or good old-fashioned messiah? Reincarnated ex-porn star or mutant information-age revolutionary? The man who awakens in New York City's Central Park with no memory of his identity and the enigmatic message FATHER FORGIVE THEM F carved into the flesh of his back may be all of these things and more.

Taken in (and then expelled) by a group of freedom fighters battling the soul-deadening Vitessa Cultporation, Clearfather is a stranger in an even stranger land. Following tantalizing clues that point to the gnomic Stinky Wiggler, and pursued by murderous Vitessa agents, Clearfather embarks on a surreal odyssey of self-discovery across an America that resembles a vast amusement park designed by some unholy trinity of Walt Disney, Hunter S. Thompson, and Hieronymus Bosch

(Source: Book jacket).

'Not since Kafka's Gregor Samsa awoke to discover that he'd turned into a cockroach has literature addressed such a traumatic transformation. In order to compile Dick for a Day, scholar and feminist Fiona Giles approached hundreds of well-known writers, poets, artists, actresses, and academics and asked them to express what they might feel if they abruptly found themselves genitally altered.

'From Terry McMillan to Jennifer Blowdryer, from Patricia Cornwell to Linda Sexton Gray, we find unexpected answers: hygienic, erotic, metaphysical, and even spiritual. By turns playful and sociologically profound, Dick for a Day is a milestone in sophisticated humor and feminist literature.'  (Publication summary)