“I'm so female I'm subversive.”
Valerie Solanas
This volume presents two rarities of Valerie Solanas. The legendary play “Up Your Ass, or, From the Cradle to the Boat, or, The Big Suck, or, Up From the Slime” (1965/1967). And the story "A Young Girl's Primer on How to Attain to the Leisure Class” (1966).
Readers of SCUM Manifesto! Behold as the literary heritage of Valerie Solanas redoubles before your eyes.
Valerie Solanas (1936–1988) self-published a mimeographed edition of these two literary pieces in 1967, sold in select New York bookstores. For over two decades she tried to get her controversial play staged, but “Up Your Ass” wasn't turned into a theatre production until 2000. “A Young Girl's Primer…” was first published in the men's magazine Cavalier in 1966, and republished in the feminist newspaper Majority Report in 1975.
From the Introduction by Kristian Carlsson: «Those who fail to notice the satirical intentions of Solanas in SCUM Manifesto will surely reconsider after familiarizing themselves with the comic style of her play Up Your Ass.»
From reviews of the Swedish Edition of this book, published in 2015:
“…funny, blunt, yes, brutal. Solanas has a sharp eye for the stupidities and failings of male-dominated society.” /Maria Ehrenberg, Boraas Tidning.
“Valerie Solanas has that particular, American ability to twist desperation and bitterness into experienced, street-smart lines.” /Håkan Lindgren, Svenska Dagbladet.
