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Toilet
by Thomas Woolley
Praise for Toilet
"There's no need to search and search for a first
edition of Thomas Woolley's 1998 cult classic collection of shorts,
Toilet, because the small, hip press Suspect Thoughts has released
a new edition with two new stories. For those who don't know, Woolley's
book is a brutally honest look at life through the eyes of a queer outcast.
Toilet has been hailed over and over as the next book to define
a decade, so if your decade included bathroom sex, haunting relationships
and staunch self-awareness, then this is your book. Woolley doesn't
hold back, and while the book is only 128 pages short, it is packed
with intimate stories that mesh the line between fiction and nonfiction
(and not in a blatant James Frey way). Currently working in New York,
Woolley was raised in California and lived briefly in Portland, Oregon,
where most of the book takes place. AIDS, masturbation, life and death
and even a "Piss Bottle" aren't off limits to Woolley's observing eye
and introspective thoughts."
—Anthony King, Bay Windows
"Undoubtedly you are wondering what kind of book could carry the name Toilet. I have to confess that I wondered the same thing when I first saw it at the venerable Barnes and Noble store in West Little Rock.
"I didn't buy it the day I saw it and when I went back a couple of days later to pick it up, it was gone. Imagine my surprise when I opened my mailbox this afternoon and found that Greg Wharton of Suspect Thoughts Press sent me a review copy. So I sat myself down, lit a smoke, and put on some coffee and I was ready to hit the Toilet.
"I had no idea about what to expect but I was very pleasantly surprised when I realized I was actually enjoying a very literate book with one of the strangest titles I had ever come across.
"Let me say this from the get go, this book has brilliance. The writing is fluid (excuse the pun) and it says a lot about the way we live. Let's face it—behind my 'pristine' appearance lies a really sensual person (who would love to be a slut) and this book appealed to those aspects of my personality and my being. This is not so much a piece of literature but rather ranting and stories which are laced with acid and degeneracy—and they are fun. Woolley's voice is crystal clear and he is sexy and honest as well as aggressive in his writing. He aims to shock and that he does. When the book first appeared in 1998 it was a shocker and the newly revised edition still shocks, perhaps even more than before when we take a good hard look at what is happening in this country under Bush. As Woolley deals with gay Portland, 'the white trash capital of the world,' we see similarities in our own neighborhoods. As we learn about the Portlanders, we also learn about ourselves, our hidden desires, our fantasies, our dream lives. Let me punctuate that with a 'Woolleyism,' 'the really interesting show is not onscreen but in the darkest part of the theater.'
"Woolley acknowledges that his writing is like vomiting on a page and what comes out 'saturates the page' and is rarely cut. I guess it is fair to say that Toilet is a book of spewing and some of them are not exactly the average reader's usual fare. I, however, found a great deal there and I am well pleased that I read the book. Basically Toilet is a group of unpolished first person tales of Portland that deal with the disquiet ness of gay life. The stories don't shock—they break through shock. Instead f shocking us, they give s hope-hope to change the present in order to make the future better. I felt if I had been punched up, knocked down, given smelling salts and roused to the point of action.
"Let's face reality. There is not much n the world that shocks us anymore. We have seen assassinations, terrorist attacks and George W. Bush in the White House. Janet Jackson has flashed us on national TV and we see wholesale murder in the movies and ads for penile erectile dysfunction on prime time TV ads, We can discuss diarrhea on the tube, we have been warned about yeast infection and see Bob Dole take Viagra. Perhaps the only real shocker left for us to endure is to being standing next to someone at a fashionable opening and have cut the cheese and admit that he did so in a loud voice. Should we be shocked by a short story named "Piss Bottle"? Woolley's writing is brutally honest and honesty offends only those who do not partake of it. What a pleasure it is to have raw emotion, to have an author write what he really thinks. Truth only hurts those who lie and if one is offended by truthfulness, then he hasn't much of a place in the world today.
"This is Toilet—brutal honesty and straight outspoken language. Woolley writes down what most of us would like to experience. He is brave enough to write how he feels. These stories will arouse your appetite for sexuality; they will make you horny and make you reconsider who you really are. Isn't one of the qualities of good literature is that it makes you think? Shakespeare used that technique and so does Thomas Woolley. I have to say that this is a book that made me sit up and reconsider and reevaluate myself. How long any change may last, I have no idea."
—Amos Lassen, Eureka Pride
"The advance press on Thomas Woolley's Toilet had me thinking this collection of short stories would be a bit gross and hard to read. I am always suspicious when blurbs tell me something is 'shocking' and, frankly, I may not, on my own, pick up a book called Toilet simply because the title inspires images of bathroom sex and glory holes that already heavily populate a lot of gay fiction. I might, and you might, pass this book by.
"That would be a mistake. Toilet, originally released in 1988, is great. Not only that, it's really, really good.
"From the first story, 'Cake,' about less-than-exciting birthday celebrations to the last, 'Life in Passing,' about not getting what you want out of life, Toilet delivers an uncompromising honesty that most writers only reserve for depictions of violence. Yes, some images are hard to take unless you are into piss-drinking and shit-eating, but don't let that distract you from Woolley's real gift--bringing you right next to him, even into his head, so much so that you think you are reading someone's personal journal and wish your own could be so truthful.
"Standout stories include 'Stonewall,' a look at AIDS and depictions of gays; 'That's Karma, Baby' about a vandalizing Oreo; and the previously mentioned 'Life in Passing,' a reflection on age and homosexuality and the energy it takes to be who we are (the last two pages of this one kicked my ass). Another standout, 'Holiday,' is a heartbreaking story about how our expectations are shaped using holidays to mark the passage of time. But every story in this collection has something to say about who people are and how we manage or fail to manage our lives.
When stories do contain hard images, they aren't there simply to shock the reader. Without them, Woolley's observations about his characters and their views of themselves would carry less weight, be less poignant and true. His gift is in expressing what is inside, how the mind indulges our loneliness and pain and dashes our expectations or justifies our actions or allows us to do things others never see. I challenge you not to find yourself in these pages."
—Will Louis, X-Factor
"Thomas Woolley is the kitchen god of bathroom sex.
Toilet is filled with the liquid writing of human fluids."
—Kathy Acker, author of My Mother: Demonology
"Thomas Wooley's Toilet smacks of brilliance.
His sinuous, newsy, mega-refined yet weirdly aggressive voice gave me
an incredible rush."
—Dennis Cooper, author of The Sluts
"Both cheery and cantankerous, the stories and rantings
of Toilet are linked by a battery-acid tone and a smart, atomic
energy. Woolley is a wholly engaging original, and injects his humor
with equal parts horror and sad, eerie nostalgia."
—Scott Heim, author of Mysterious Skin
release: October 2005
gay fiction
softcover, 5X7
128 pages, $12.95
0-9763411-2-3
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