Kittens in the Boiler, by Delphine Lecompte. Salem: Thieves Jargon Press, 2005. $12.95, paper. ISBN 0-9770750-0-1

In this debut novel set on the Belgian coast, Lecompte explores the harsh life of a prostitute, milk bottle stacker and British alternative music fan also named Delphine.

The novel is constructed of a series of vignettes chronicling Delphine’s violent, difficult and at times very funny life. She meets johns, she works a boring grocery store job, she listens to music, and she cuts herself with razors and masturbates with scissors. Orphaned, she blames middle class hypocritical society for abandoning her. And she wants to be adopted, to finally be taken care of by the world that abandoned her, by her johns, by anyone. She is a violent wunderkind, abused so deeply and thoroughly that she has come to enjoy the abuse, to expect it and to revel in it.

“[A] ll [I] ever wanted,” she says in My Little Violent Empire, a vignette near the opening, “was a quiet place, [S] miths songs and some random sex from time to time, and [I] got this: prostitution, a drinking problem, sleazy cops, scabby cocks, … and a [N] oel [G]allagher obsession, [I] ‘m liking it, the world outside is so much safer than this brutal hive, but this is the only hive that’s got something real to offer…”

These sections are written in breakneck prose, with little punctuation other than commas, and no capitalization. This serves to keep things flowing, and to emulate the speech patterns and dialect of the narrator. Would we believe a properly punctuating prostitute as a narrator? (Can we say that five times fast?) I don’t know, but this is one of many levels that make this book that much more enjoyable, once you settle back and realize that it is, of course, purposeful.

Delphine’s unrelenting attitude gets her into many kinds of trouble as she grows separate from friends and secure relationships. She watches the world moving on without her, abandoning her and not offering what she needs. She faces her unhappiness over and over, as in this excerpt from “Beach Scum,” where she comes face to face with herself: “[T] here’s an old cunt on a train writing dodgy stories about a minging orphan girl and an illiterate rentboy, every now and then he looks up at us, smirks and then continues writing…’{W] asn’t that your father?’” (the rentboy says.)

Is that her father who has orphaned her and left her to this life, or is it Lecompte looking back at a life she’s left and is now revisiting through writing? Or is it someone copying down Delphine’s life, stealing the fruits of her massive creativity, her energy, without suffering the traumas. This is a kind of rape she is describing. Dues have not been paid, or rather they have, but not by the person profiting in this situation. But it also a moment of self-realization. She is looking at herself from the outside.

As the novel progresses, Delphine’s johns become more violent, and the violence becomes less fulfilling as her writing takes over. She is now examining her life more. Her dissatisfaction grows and she becomes bored and unfulfilled, but the life won’t let her go.

Is this a confessional novel? Is it a coming of age novel? Yes, but it’s more than this. It is an intricately layered story, well formed and dripping blood. Experimental in structure and style, the book reeks of real characters. There is no easy resolution for Lecompte or for us. There is no Ahah! moment, in which all is clarified and changed. Or rather, there are moments, as in life, when things change, and then they change back, and then they change to something else.

Lecompte is in total control with this novel, throwing up her sins and our own and sifting through them to find the gold. It’s dirty, it’s painful, it’s exciting, it’s vulgar, it’s funny, it’s tapping into something that made sense of the world when we was fifteen, something we remember late at night or for a moment at a stoplight, when the light changes and suddenly we can’t remember which way we were supposed to go.

-CL Bledsoe