SOURCE: “Debased and Lascivious? Samuel R. Delany's Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand,” in Ash of Stars: On the Writing of Samuel R. Delany, edited by James Sallis, University Press of Mississippi, 1996, pp. 26-42.

In the following essay, Blackford examines Delany's presentation of gender and sexuality in Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. Blackford contends that the novel, while often confusing and overly ambiguous, reveals Delany's innovative effort to subvert gender-coded language and popular stereotypes about physical beauty and sexual norms.

I.

Samuel R. Delany has been a prolific writer in recent years, having just completed the trilogy that began with Tales of Nevèrÿon, as well as working on a far-future diptych that begins with Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. The Nevèrÿon books deserve a separate extended discussion.

Stars in My Pocket has its own internal structural...