The tradition with the slacker/bohemian goes in the past towards the original author of La Vie de Boh?� https://lalibido.com.au/ , Henry Murger (1851), later become a famous opera by Puccini and then given a modern twist in Rent (using the Latin Quarter of Paris updated towards the East Village, NYC). Permanent Obscurity, the novel by Richard Perez, pays homage to that particular tradition and the ones same misfit slackers/dreamers/losers with Dolores and Serena, two would-be, wannabe, too-f'cked-up-to-be downtown artists.
Like anyone familiar using the tradition of La Boh?�me, this genre is steeped in failure, and strangely that's part in the playfulness and attraction than it: we know we're in Losertown, witnessing a slow-motion derailment from scene one. Dolores and Serena are hopelessly lost right away without any future on the horizon -- more into nurturing their drug habits than at working at their art. Dolores is often a photographer at least she was once; Serena is really a singer and satisfaction artist or at least she was previously. These two 22-year-old "has beens" fear a limitless future of floundering. So, aided by the publisher from LA, they undertake fetish photography and modeling, bringing Baby -- Serena's "sub" (or boyfriend variation) -- involved with it. Before long Serena is cooking up bigger schemes that Dolores wants no a part of: shooting a fetish video -- or line of videos -- that might sustain them financially when they call their unique shots. Meanwhile, dealers come a'knockin', looking to be paid, and things get progressively worse, with debts ultimately causing threats bringing about poor judgment calls, theft, physical abuse, finally an accidental death. Or two.
Permanent Obscurity spins its way through this hazy nightmare with true slacker wit and elegance. In control of this narrative, coughing pot smoke, is weedhead Dolores Santana recounting the full sordid tale beginning when she and Serena first met. Serena remains a chameleon-like creature; beautiful and built just like a Russ Meyer sex bomb, she becomes the evil sister always luring Dolores to dark places, not that Dolores needs much coaxing. At some point, you understand the 2 will be more than friends in addition to their passion for the other person infuses the narrative with an increase of intensity. As the story progresses, their behavior takes on a do-or-die desperation, and they also become like renegades, even sharing a.38 Caliber weapon.
This book just isn't to the inexperienced: the sexuality is kinky, constantly dipping into BDSM culture, tops and bottoms, dominants and submissives. The writing is raw, urban, rough. It's a slacker comedy as well as a bohemian homage that even references Trainspotting. At the same time, Permanent Obscurity remains unique in its try and depict the negative side of love, friendship, and heartbreak.
This book is listed under the full title: PERMANENT OBSCURITY: Or a Cautionary Tale of Two Girls and Their Misadventures with Drugs, Pornography and Death by Dolores Santana (as told to Richard Perez)
Review by Linda McCabe