Rating: 
Summary: lush,organic,deeply unsettling modern fary tales
Review: The consumer, like most of M gira's work is duplicitly lush, beautifull,serene and yet horrific on a quantum metaphysical level. I found this to be THE most repulsive,disturbing, writing I have ever come across and yet,I found myself drawn into the irresistable deep beaty that evocates out of the pages. The author has a spoken word CD called "the somniloquist" wich I also reccomend. It gave me some of the most unusual nightmares I can remember.Gira's unique writing style is hallucinogenic and sedative, yet seething with the power that can be found in his seminal, equally genius band "SWANS" and "the angels of light" (check them both out) @ swanspair.com Order this book if not simply for the fact that there is NOTHING really similar. even if you dont "like" it you will not be uneffected.
Rating:
Summary: The biggest brain trip ever
Review: This book takes reality and gives it such a weird twist that you feel bad liking it. It is so hard to find a book that you can't put down and this is one of those books - it is among the must reads
Rating: 
Summary: Chalk one up for the Mute Dwarf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: This book was definetly a page turner but it also made me turn back a few and say "hold on what the hell just happened." Besides a few stories like "Why I Ate My Wife", that unfortunately stuck along the lines of the title exactly, the collection of shorts were unexplainably awesome. P.S. I warn you now....."The Wh*re Boy" will give you a sickened and unforgiving mind for eternity.
Rating:
Summary: Giras troubled mind leaks onto paper...
Review: This disturbing collections of short stories, musings, and seemingly random thoughts actually hovers somewhere between 3 and 4 stars, but I give Mr. Gira the benefit of the doubt. The purity of the ugliness written almost poetically on these pages becomes almost beautiful in its sick, twisted, dark, painful, pain-filled, drug-induced dislocation of mind and self.In other words, Michael Gira is one sick little puppy. There is harmony in his savage portrayals of empty submission to torture and honestly in his slipping away of self. Brutal self loathing and a vicious need of self-punishment dominate these unpleasant tales and musings, with the sharpened sting of drug enhanced delusions of mind and body slipping away into nothingness. Only from the mind of a tortured, clinically depressed soul could tales such as these sprout; ugly and black with poisonous fangs, sickly perverse and bitterly cruel. This collection is not for the squeamish or light hearted, or even for those looking for the bloodbath type of horror musings; however it does contain more searching of the true illness of mind and body than the merely tediously disgusting works of Poppy Z. Brite or Cara Bruce. Michael Gira was also the singer/songwriter for the band The Swans, a dark and moody goth/industrial type band from the 80s and has done a few Cds on his own. This stories are as tortured and depressing as his music. My major complaint was after reading about three quarters of the way through the stories, they kind of began to blend into each other. Though the descriptions were almost poetic in their brutality, they became repetitive after awhile, different wordings of the same internal and external tortures. It was a little like having your depressed friend come over and stay a little too long, going on and on about how horrible their life is. But all in all, if you want to read something even more disturbing and disjointed than Bret Easton Ellis American Psycho, pick this up. Just don't read it at night, or when you are depressed. Also, I apologize for my punctuation, but until Amazon fixes its glitch of transforming punctuation into question marks and onehalf symbols, I find myself refraining from using them.
Rating:
Summary: Giras troubled mind leaks onto paper...
Review: This disturbing collections of short stories, musings, and seemingly random thoughts actually hovers somewhere between 3 and 4 stars, but I give Mr. Gira the benefit of the doubt. The purity of the ugliness written almost poetically on these pages becomes almost beautiful in its sick, twisted, dark, painful, pain-filled, drug-induced dislocation of mind and self. In other words, Michael Gira is one sick little puppy. There is harmony in his savage portrayals of empty submission to torture and honestly in his slipping away of self. Brutal self loathing and a vicious need of self-punishment dominate these unpleasant tales and musings, with the sharpened sting of drug enhanced delusions of mind and body slipping away into nothingness. Only from the mind of a tortured, clinically depressed soul could tales such as these sprout; ugly and black with poisonous fangs, sickly perverse and bitterly cruel. This collection is not for the squeamish or light hearted, or even for those looking for the bloodbath type of horror musings; however it does contain more searching of the true illness of mind and body than the merely tediously disgusting works of Poppy Z. Brite or Cara Bruce. Michael Gira was also the singer/songwriter for the band The Swans, a dark and moody goth/industrial type band from the 80s and has done a few Cds on his own. This stories are as tortured and depressing as his music. My major complaint was after reading about three quarters of the way through the stories, they kind of began to blend into each other. Though the descriptions were almost poetic in their brutality, they became repetitive after awhile, different wordings of the same internal and external tortures. It was a little like having your depressed friend come over and stay a little too long, going on and on about how horrible their life is. But all in all, if you want to read something even more disturbing and disjointed than Bret Easton Ellis American Psycho, pick this up. Just don't read it at night, or when you are depressed. Also, I apologize for my punctuation, but until Amazon fixes its glitch of transforming punctuation into question marks and onehalf symbols, I find myself refraining from using them.
Rating:
Summary: The Consumer consumes.
Review: This is bleak, bleak writing. Highly intoxicating and hypnotic, in its swirling, and chaotic industrial wasteland. Fleeting yet beautiful, like the last strands of light entering a nearly fully collapsed star. Gira is very poignant and calculated in his misanthropic delivery. Whether he talks about teenage kids exhausting brain cells on gas soaked rags, love encounters gone terribly wrong, masochistic fantasies, or hallucinations from a malignant ether realm...Gira remains poised and determined. Not for shock value, but rather for the love of describing the foul taste of his own self-hatred. This toxic, corrosive, and emotionally eroding narrative doesn't eschew nothing in its volatile path. Highly recommended to those of you that would like to slither away from the perks and peaks of materialism, and experience depravity and deprivation in all its ill-fated glory. I do warn you however: The visceral descriptions used to accentuate Gira's self-loathing come at a cost. The cost: the congealed mess left in your stomach.
Rating:
Summary: Original and stylish
Review: This is one of the most refreshing books I have read in recent months. The writing is very explorative. The imagery is intricate, gruesome, organic, scatalogical. M. Gira imaginatively conveys the darker and seamier side of the psyche in his examinations of self-destruction, delusion, orgiastic excess and loss of identity. Definitively worth noticing.
Rating:
Summary: The All-Consuming
Review: This is one of the most spirtitually decimating, emotionally deprived pieces of work that I have ever had the (pleasure?) to read. It is an arduous journey through the depths of dillusion, betrayal, sexual manipulation, and hatred, all masterfully depicted by ex-Swan Michael Gira. His style of writing will wrench you out of your life and into his as he plummets toward some unseen all-consuming finale. In the end, you won't want to cry, scream, or breathe a sigh of relief. You will want to go to sleep, wake up the next day, and try to forget the imagery that was smashed into your head with the force of a supernova.
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