When I worked at The Washington Times, there was a place in the office called the “discard table” where the book review editors — or anybody else — would leave the books they got for free from publishers but didn’t want to keep. My library has scores of volumes rescued from the discard table, among them a slender paperback novel called Generation S.L.U.T.
The titular acronym stands for Sexually Liberated Urban Teens, and the novel is a dark and twisted reflection on the unspeakable degeneracy of contemporary adolescents — and their parents, and their schools, and in fact, it is a jeremiad against the entire decadent post-Christian society which spawned these worthless spoiled brats.
Generation S.L.U.T. is full of dirty words and dirty actions, and it takes a discriminating mind to see that this novel, beneath its numerous layers of putrid polymorphous filth, is an essentially conservative critique of 21st-century American culture. And as soon as I began reading it, I knew I had to meet the twisted mind that produced this Dante’s Inferno of teen novels, Marty Beckerman.
Were there any justice in the world, young Beckerman would have already seen his perverse novel turned into a major motion picture, or perhaps even an HBO series, but Hollywood evidently lacks the kind of discriminating minds who can see the genius that I saw in Generation S.L.U.T. Or perhaps, they are daunted by fear of what holy unshirted hell would be unleashed on anyone who dared to turn such a wicked story into a movie. Merely to get it down to an R rating would require very careful work by the screenwriter and director. And honestly, what would the critics say about a movie whose climactic scene involves gang-rape, recorded on video for commercial purposes by a suburban teenage drug kingpin?
After reading the book, I quickly got in touch with Marty Beckerman via e-mail and eventually we met in person. It was Beckerman who sat with me, one night at a Reason magazine happy hour gathering, as we plied Christopher Hitchens with Johnny Walker Black, merely for the pleasure of hearing Hitch tell stories. Marty and I have occasionally crossed paths since then, and I have come to admire — and more importantly, to fear — his bizarre sense of humor. If you ever invite Beckerman to a party, rest assured that at least one of your guests will be grossly offended by Beckerman’s outrageous sarcasm, which is all the more dangerous because of his deadpan delivery.
All of which is a necessary disclaimer — you have been warned! — to Marty Beckerman’s latest blog post:
Your Peanut-Allergic Kid is a Little G-ddamn Sissy
Click that link at your peril.
