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Origami Striptease
a novel by
Peggy Munson
Praise for Origami Striptease
"Starting with the wham-bam opening sentence--'One day, Jack quit moving his cock, and the world just stopped'--and continuing with the inky, scary, dreamy folds of prose that follow, Peggy Munson's Origami Striptease arouses the just-in-time-for-Pride question: 'Who's your daddy?' I'm being campy, but it suits Munson's unnamed narrator, a femme writer who rustles up rough sex with 'borderland boys'--butches and transguys and daddies who 'wanted to pass, but not too much.'
"Prior to meeting the aforementioned Jack, the narrator turned out confessional columns for erotica rags, always keeping a 'pen-length' distance from her affairs. But Jack demolishes the narrator's writerly remove, and they tumble hard into the hot, tender, and devouring variety of love, the kind that undoes you and, if you let it, puts you back together again, transformed. Jack's got issues, though, which in Munson's universe manifest as a bizarre penchant for sleeping on ice cubes, coupled with fantasies involving the also-very-icy Greenland. So he hits the road, but contrary to that old, folksy lyric, Munson's Jack does come back. And the question of whether he'll self-destruct or undergo a transformation sets the stage for the novel's final, wild confrontation.
"Origami Striptease is loaded with forces that destabilize the narrative: the blurry fever waves of the narrator's chronic illness, the moment of social violence when a cop sneeringly refuses to read her lover's gender as male. This volatility penetrates to the level of language as, throughout the novel, bodies and landscapes transmogrify into paper and ink. 'Joe broke into a thousand paper shards and Monique splattered on him, inking up his parts,' Munson writes, reminding us of the act of composition as well as the slippery interface between signifier and signified. At times the imagery feels overwrought, but overall this movement between literal and symbolic language constitutes both the point and the pleasure of the novel."
—Amanda Davidson, San Francisco Bay Guardian
"Reading Origami Striptease by Peggy Munson reminded me of the first time I read Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body--my then-partner was "treated" to my reading aloud from the book because I was so moved by its language. Like then, I wanted to read passages of Origami to everyone, wanted to share the rhythm of the prose and the fierceness of the imagery. With Origami, even more so than Body, there were times when it wasn't quite clear what was going on, but Munson's writing kept me glued to the page, engrossed in the story of the narrator-writer and her relationships with various tranny bois and butches.
"'I gave them more than my commitment could have given them. I made us three-dimensional with printer-planed and ballpoint-flattened words. I knew that paper language was the anthill of the human race--the thing that some of us woke up compelled to build upon, and others burned, so it could grow like once-charred prairie grass. Each time I slid beneath my desk to write, I did an origami striptease. First my paper stripped, and then the pen. And then, collapsed, and naked, I imploded into both of them.'
"The way the story unfolds reminds me of 'psychedelic lit' from the sixties and seventies, but in Munson's novel, high fevers, poison, and chronic illness are the culprits of the hazy narrative rather than drugs. Central to the story is the writer's relationship with Jack--the sex, the passion, the love, the illnesses, the intensity.
"'Jack fucked the way a kid swings in a swing when he has ten minutes until the end of recess and he really thinks that he can kick the clouds…We weren't confined by the parameters of what a body was expected to provide. I wasn't sure if I could differentiate between the viscera and their imposters.'
"Origami Striptease is a completely queer trip into an anti-wonderland filled with ice hotels and Zamboni machines, characters named the Sludge and the Pharoah, and more than one kind of heart condition.
"Munson is a kick-ass novelist to watch out for. She's been writing hot erotica for years, with her stories included in every edition of Best Lesbian Erotica since 1998. She's also the editor of the anthology Stricken: Voices from the Hidden Epidemic of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome."
—Suzanne Corson, Books to Watch Out For
"I'm not quite sure if I understood everything that goes on in Peggy Munson's debut novel Origami Striptease, but that's probably why I loved it so much. The novel has been compared to a William Burroughs-esque form of writing, where metaphor and plot weave together in a lyrical narrative. I want to attempt to explain the plot of this beautiful (yet kinda creepy) story for you, but it doesn't flow or unfold in any sort of a structured way.
"From what I can gather, this vividly poetic story is about a love that grows between a feisty female writer, and the awkwardly handsome tranny, Jack. Their love, like many beginnings of love that I'm sure we have all experienced, ignites from very hot and graphic sex, but is eventually dissipated by Jack's wandering eye.
"What I most appreciated about this unusual love story is that it shows us how the boundaries of gender are just as sexy, if not sexier, than the endless possibilities of the imagination. Any preconceptions you might have had about bodies, sex, gender, and reality will completely shift when you read Munson's story. I wouldn't describe it as breathtaking, but some parts of the book definitely made me stop breathing. Once I started it, I couldn't resist lying around my apartment all day, becoming entranced by the subversive characters, and consuming every last bit of language that Munson laid out on the page."
—Chelsey Clammer, Chill Magazine
"In Origami Striptease, Munson creates a magical love story between a
writer and a nomad named Jack, but the affair isn't surprising. The
writer is a journalist of 'tell-all porn' with a penchant for trannies
and butches. The story takes an interesting turn when Jack gives in to
his obsession for cold, leaving the writer sick and alone. The girl on
boy (dressed as girl) action is steamy, and definitely creates new
definitions of gender and equality. Munson is a poet at heart, and a
master of the written word. At times her prose is a bit heavy handed,
but the story is strong and powerful. You won't be put off by the
iambic prose; in fact you won't even notice because you'll be so
involved with the sexy story. Origami Striptease is a must-read of
alternative gender bending lit."
—Anthony King, Bay Windows
"I was intoxicated by the prose of this book in which love, sex, illness, writing, girls and boys who are girls roil around in a steamy, bubbly drunk-making stew. Munson is a stylist extraordinaire and the story she tells here will leave you wide-eyed, spent, unnerved. You have been warned."
—Rebecca Brown,
author of The Terrible Girls
"Origami Striptease is one-of-a-kind. The author
destroys conventions of gender, narrative, and language itself yet gives
us a powerful, even mythic, tale of love and transformation. Situated
in a completely queer zone of desire, Origami Striptease puts
the reader through as many changes as its characters pursue. This is
a book that you experience rather than read."
—Patrick Califa,
author of Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism
"In Origami Striptease, the traditional boy-meets-girl
narrative gets undressed. Gerunds and genders refashion pens, pricks,
and pussy in this picaresque and inventive tale."
—Jennifer Natalya Fink,
author of Burn
"This is sleezily insidious writing constructed as if you are already in it. I mean, smothered in sex and sticky frosting and the close proximity of death. I really admire Peggy Munson's Origami Striptease. It's a good, dirty book."
—Eileen Myles,
author of Cool for You
"Origami Striptease reads like William S. Burroughs
and Djuna Barnes howling at a brutal paper moon."
—Susan Stinson,
author of Venus of Chalk
release: October 2006
lesbian/transgender fiction
softcover, 5X8
208 pages, $16.95
0-9763411-9-0
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