SLICED AMERICANA by Jim Watkins, Sharon Green, and Tom Riedel: a review.
“Cut my life into pieces, this is my last resort”
Rating: 0 out of 10
Sliced Americana (2021, “Is It Wet Yet Press”) is most assuredly one of the least clever books ever to be published, despite the author’s self-assurance that he can cleverly wield the advanced storytelling techniques it employs. Far from enlightening the reader on multiple timelines, I only found myself enlightened regarding the depth of Jim Watkins’ traumatic past and obsession with the severing of male penis’s from their owners.
The novella rapidly flips between four different texts, (in order to make some deranged point about quantum mechanics, it is “explained” at one point):
- A first-person story from an unnamed character (whom I will call Sliced Jim) who is a self-insert for Jim Watkins, and his homosexual lover, “Chuck”, whom he lives with, and whom the story forces him to spend essentially every moment together with. I understand “Chuck” to be Jim Watkins’ shadow (in Jungian psychoanalytic terms) — for every positive virtue Sliced Jim has, Chuck has its negative.
- Philosophical navel-gazing, political rambling and misunderstood physics.
- Vignettes, all consisting of a dramatic death (or near-death), followed by a teleportation to a void space where one is commanded to strip naked for “purification” by their “transition officer”, Gwendolyn. When the characters (Laqueesha and Treyvon: 13-year-old twins; Ally, Danny, maybe some others I forget despite having just finished it and read it all today, they’re all extremely forgettable) do this, the males get hard and ejaculate (with the ejaculate not hitting the floor, Watkins reminds us for no reason each time), while both sexes void their bowels. Treyvon does this in front of his sister, which lead to the final story:
- “James” introducing “the party” to “the ROM (Read Only Mode)”. It is heavily implied that, although we haven’t seen it happen yet, Sliced Jim and James are one in the same, that somehow Sliced Jim creates the ROM.
At one point in the narrative, Jim informs us his pen is running out of ink:
Many other hamfisted attempts to make the reader feel like they are moving between timelines and breaking the fourth wall are done, none successfully. All the vignettes may as well be one vignette, as by the second you already know what’s coming before Gwendolyn squawks about purification.
What is most interesting about the work is certainly not something Jim intended:
Indeed, homosexuality absolutely pervades the work. Jim all but uses the book to come out as gay, blaming his sexuality on being raped (directly after whining about women like an incel):
Oh yeah, and so it doesn’t seem weird how much time they spend together, Chuck’s dick is severed before Act I is even over.
This book is terrible. Its author is a terrible person. What more is there one could say?
0/10.
