SOURCE: "Kathy Acker's Don Quixote: Nomad Writing," in Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 9, No. 3, Fall, 1989, pp. 56-62.

In the following essay, Dix examines nomadism, revolutionary subversion, and the possibility of personal affirmation and social transformation as portrayed by Acker in Don Quixote.

"This is the time to escape."

"The sexual is the political realm."

By loving another person, she would right every manner of political, social, and individual wrong: she would put herself in those situations so perilous the glory of her name would resound.

Kathy Acker's Don Quixote is on a quest: she sets out to perform the now almost impossible act of loving another person; however, she realizes that this can occur only by changing the nature of our society. To make love possible, she must create the necessary conditions for mutual human respect and love to exist (acceptance of the other, of the other within...