Steve Katz — The Exagggerations of Peter Prince [1968]

Part of the Fiction Collective crew of avant-garde reprobates alongside Raymond Federman, Ronald Sukenick, Clarence Major, and Jonathan Baumbach, Steve Katz and his inventive novels have received a short shrift from the reading public. In addition to writing seven novels, Katz also published three poetry books, five short story collections, an erotic novel for Grove Press under a pseudonym (Posh, 1971, as Stephanie Gatos), and co-wrote a filmed screenplay (Hex, 1973, starring Keith Carradine). His recent memoir-in-fragments, The Compleat Memoirhhoids shines a light on his various non-literary preoccupations, including, among others, t’ai chi and fine art. This novel was released in the exuuuberant dimensions of a coffee table book, and proceeds to challenge the reader’s expectations as to what a novel can do, much in the manner of Federman’s more typographically insane Double or Nothing. The plot takes a conventional “hero” (Peter Prince) and runs him through various set-pieces, interrupted by the novel’s peculiarities: Vonnegut-like scribbles and weird colour-inverted pictures; one long section split into three (and later four) columns, where the reader is encourage to “choose their own adventure”; sections X’ed out by the author as unsatisfactory; a mock-TV format with marginalia; parts interrupted by the author’s impudent electric fan; specially designed typographical installations; and cartoon adverts. This sounds an exhausting pot pourri, but for the most part, The Exagggerations of Peter Prince is a standard comic novel in the sixties black humour camp, with Peter Prince as the philandering antihero who never has to account for his assholish actions, similar to the Sukenick hero in Sukenick’s Up, also released that year (to more acclaim). There are long chunks of the novel unbothered by the amusing metafictional play, and as a die-hard metafiction addict, I could have used further exagggerations to keep me interested outside the ramshackle plot. This novel is as far out as Katz ever went (a perfect counterculture artefact), focusing on surreal comedic prose for his short works, and later in life, straight autobiographical writing for his trilogy, starting with Wier & Pouce (a far less interesting endeavour than his exxxperiments). As a fantastic work of metafiction and bold slice of exploratory publishing, this novel begs a place on any self-respecting out of print book hunter’s shelves. No exagggeration.

Editions:

Hardback, 1968, Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Novels:

The Lestriad, 1962, Edizioni Milella.

The Exagggerations of Peter Prince, 1968, Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Saw, 1972, Knopf.

Wier & Pouce, 1984, Sun & Moon.

Florry of Washington Heights, 1987, Sun & Moon.

Swanny’s Ways, 1995, Sun & Moon.

Antonello’s Lion, 2005, Green Integer.

Short stories:

Creamy & Delicious, 1970, Random House.

Moving Parts, 1977, Fiction Collective.

Stolen Stories, 1984, Fiction Collective.

43 Fictions, 1992, Sun & Moon.

Kissssssss: A Miscellany, 2007, FC2.