Massage

by Henry Flesh

lthough it has been hailed as a masterpiece by writers as disparate as David Sedaris and Kaylie Jones, MASSAGE will no doubt be assailed as politically incorrect because of its chilling view of a New York ravaged by AIDS, anger, homophobia, and addiction. The action takes place in grungy East Village clubs such as The Scrotum, where safe sex is an oxymoron. Randy inhabits a gay underworld of lower Manhattan, peopled with such characters as his amoral pimp, Jake; feuding drag queens Fay Ray and Stella Dallas; prowling literary figures Dakota Montaya and Denise Lamour (My friends may be avaricious, backbiting cunts, says Graham, but they do know how to work a room); and wasted hustlers like Haircut, the coke-addled prostitute with a plastic septum who finds the answer in AA. Massage succeeds precisely because it lies close to unexplored terrain.