SOURCE: "Ooh Ooh. And Then Again, Ah Ah," in The New York Times Book Review, January 17, 1988, p. 14.

In the following review, Frakes offers a generally unfavorable assessment of Literal Madness.

In order to set the mood for this collection of three novels, let's begin with some key statements from My Death My Life by Pier Paolo Pasolini: "Language is more important than meaning…. Burn the schools. They teach you about good writing. That's a way of keeping you from writing what you want to." "I like this sentence cause it's stupid." "Language is making me sick." Shall we dance? The program is announced early. "I, Pier Paolo Pasolini, will solve my murder by denying the principle of causation and by proposing nominalism." The few subsequent references to this quest include: "(Pasolini died by suicide.)" and "The British killed Pasolini in order to keep control of their Empire."

Otherwise...