Many readers are curious why it's been so long between books.

It's difficult to talk about. In the past the publishers I've worked with have been extremely generous. And in almost every case, have been people who believed in the work rather than the sales and marketing. No one's making any money off of my writing. Not me, not the people who take it on. But in the last few years I ended up in this hell where I wasn't asking people to only put the books out but to deal with a ridiculous amount of political aggravation. A publisher told me he would get firebombed if he brought out something that he wanted to publish. Another had to watch his distribution crumble just because of the association with me. The problem with talking about this is I end up sounding like some goofy voice against censorship or a self-aggrandizing asshole who thinks he deserves a chance to be heard as he fights the corporate system. Due to the important imaginative challenges I present for the greater public. I don't feel that way inclined, I assure you. Most of my books have caused distribution and printing problems in the past. I sell enough books and receive enough attention where some people are encouraged to bring that material out. I don't sell enough books to pay for the lawyers, however. And these various problems finally became too much.

Selfish, Little seems to have more specific autobiographical content than your other books.

The limited nature of Selfish, Little allowed me to address specifics, which is something I think has been necessary for a long time. I'm tired of spin and advertising. Really sick of carefully worded text that has witty built-in escape clauses.

The book grew out of the introduction I did for Brady's Gates of Janus. I knew that the writing in that introduction had a better than average chance of being read by people involved in Brady's life - parents of victims, police, Brady himself. And I thought it was important to address that, them, directly. I wanted to tell them about myself, pathetically enough, for purely personal reasons. It wasn't a situation where objectivity was possible but, even if it was, it wouldn't have meant anything worth doing.

Adam Parfrey of Feral House took a huge risk, with little hope of benefit, in including my introduction in that book. And, after it was done and I saw what happened, I knew I wanted to do a lot more.

Why is Lesley Ann Downey's murder especially meaningful to you? Is it the particulars of the crime you're concerned with, or the victim? Has Lesley become a sort of archetype or metaphor in your
private life?

The title is the "annotated" Lesley Ann because virtually everything in the book relates back to the effect her murder in particular, all these miles away, has had on what has happened in my life. I find it depressing that twenty years after PURE I'm still fucking writing about the poor thing. I also find that impossible to deny or to look away from. Impulses that I do not find depressing.

I've gotten a few letters that have talked about the frustrating lack of Lesley details in the book. Others have complained about the overabundance of self loathing. I think both complaints are emblematic of an idea that pivots very comfortably in the history of that little girl being photographed and recorded. For the record, I find Lesley in every single sentence in the book. And I don't feel particularly self loathing but I fully recognize how others see me. That's just one of the concepts I'm addressing in the book. In fact, I'm disturbed by how ugly some of the people are who have told me I shouldn't be too hard on myself. I'm very aware of how I'm seen in the places I go. And like to go.

You often extract pornographic content from material that most of us find tragic or appalling. Do you believe there's an overt or conscious eroticism in this sort of information?

Fuck, I wish.

I think there's a problem with a lot of the reviews I've had in the past. There are those that want me to be seen as a deconstructive commentator or jobbing artist that tries to point out the ugly hypocrisies of contemporary culture. Picking out the prurience and then explaining it to you. I'm not denying that my work may do that. But it is not a focus or something I'm particularly interested in. I've always tried to include transcripts and cuttings and grabs in my work to go much deeper than that. I'm including bits that have extremely personal resonance to me. Further, I'm obsessed with how language contorts and creates bodies. Desperate, seething less-thans. Crawling hopefuls. And, more than that, I create favorites. I'll trust that a lot of you really do find much of this material appalling. Honestly, I try very hard to see that and feel it as well.

You've pointed out that more of Ian Brady's victims were boys than girls. Why is this important?

I can tell you why I find it personally important. Brady said in court that he went to gay bars in Manchester to "look at the antics of them." It doesn't sound all that convincing. But, at the same time, you can easily understand that it would be true, even for homosexuals. I also believe that Brady and Hindley came up with a very comfortable ruse to get Edward Evans back to their home. I've seen this shift from ages and gender and availability in my own life. There is an overwhelming amount of pornography and the intent to create pornography in what Brady and Hindley did and I think I respond to that need most often.

In Selfish, Little you evoke a certain pathos when writing about the likes of Ian Brady, Peter Lancaster, and Luke Sadowski. Do you feel a degree of empathy for these people?

I'd be careful over how I use the word empathy. The Peter Lancaster and Luke Sadowski cases are of particular interest to me because I think they reflect an appropriately dire need to change fantasy into reality. My introduction to the Brady book was an attempt to nail the exact same idea since Brady addressed the point. And since I write pornography, naturally, something of an obsession for me. But Lancaster, to me, resembles one of Harlow's monkeys. It's hard to not feel outright sympathy for him. I also think his miserable case involves others turning fantasy into reality with seriously ugly consequences. It's not just him being that hideous. Sadowski, I like to think, might have really only wanted to talk to one of the little girls he was going to rent. That this might have been enough for him. That brutal sense of sexual remove versus an intense physical possibility. He set up memorial websites for the victims of particularly gruesome murders. His aim might have been simply snide and giggly-sadistic but I think the fact that others, well-meaning others, would have visited his sites and gotten something of what they were looking for is a great comment on how one should define sympathy or empathy.

A book I just finished on Thomas Hamilton addresses this in a different way. But it touches on how current trends in psychology discount the entire idea of learned or shared empathy. And, more especially, how the concept of teaching empathy to sex offenders has been a serious, some say willfully dangerous, misunderstanding. In Selfish, Little, I want to personalize all of this, however. Pull these facts and lessons out from the sexual situations one finds oneself drawn to or suddenly in the middle of. Recidivist tendencies and contradictory self-control issues.

There's been some fuss about the price of the book.

I'm sorry about the price. I don't like it. But I think there's been some misunderstanding about it. The publisher wanted to do something that was archival for once. And treat my writing in the way that everyone keeps talking about it as. That years from now, after I'm dead and the moral panic has shifted, that the writing will be treated differently. People

won't see it as shock or merely porn but rather as literature that's as concerned with language as much as all the others who only talk about language are. Language plus. Not that I'm concerned with explaining such things, honestly. It isn't my chief concern.

But, right now, the situation is that almost all of my writing is out of print. And books that were published in much larger numbers than Selfish, Little are hard to find. And publishers who wanted to publish my last few works have them stuck in limbo while new distribution ideas and legal issues and fears are blown away. Void came along and offered to publish something right away and in a beautiful edition. The original idea was for around 300-500 copies at a much steeper price. The publisher was finally able to lower the price to sixty if he printed more books. The outlay on their behalf is enormous. The books, each one, is very expensive to make. I think the people who've seen them understand this. And, hopefully, appreciate it. Also, unlike most of the other books, due to the specificity of the material, when they're gone; that's it.

Further, for once, I like the idea that people who think I'm a constant voice for the furthering of the imagination have to see that interest in a more materialistic fashion. I don't publish the books to make money, not at all. Doesn't mean I think everyone should have one or want one.

The critic and publisher Jean-Jacques Pauvert wrote an introduction to the French translation of your book Index. Can you tell us about Pauvert and how he became interested in your work?

Pauvert has been a name that I've respected since I read Sade back in my teens. And anything I say will sound like I'm trying to trade on his generosity. On the other hand, I find it very encouraging that he chose Index to be published through his imprint. I'm the only contemporary writer and the only American he's chosen to publish in this line and that is of enormous personal worth to me. But Pauvert's edition is a reprint. The original French edition was part of Laurence Viallet's Desordres series and that also means a great deal to me.

If you look at the publishers I've worked with, generally, they're a great bunch. Creation is unlike any other publishing house you can think of. The people I've worked with have integrity and intelligence and, almost always, less money than ideas.

Your forthcoming book, Comfort and Critique, came from an idea you had for a magazine. Can you tell us about this.

The magazine was an attempt to own a very explicit form of context. I wanted to name the magazine SARAH and dedicate every issue to the little Payne girl. The content would vary with each issue. But it was difficult not sounding ironic or as if I was doing a satire of Rebekah Wade. The only way to deal with the subject legitimately was to write about the impulses that brought me to the idea. I'm not trying to do conceptual art. I don't want to run away from the process or what conclusions are arrived at by leaving the work open to convenient misinterpretations. Writing is the one art form that really should allow you to hang yourself. Once again, I think there is little art being done that really owns up to such intense possibilities. Harlow is an incredible artist. I think the most important ever. And Francis Bacon created work that couldn't be done any other way. Thomas Hamilton was a far better photographer than Betsy Schneider.

-Questions prepared by Void Books publisher Alex Kasavin