A book review of PERMANENT OBSCURITY: Or A Cautionary Tale of Two Girls & Their Misadventures With Drugs, Pornography and Death by Dolores Santana (as told to Richard Perez)

For a novel that's supposedly kinky and "subversive," PERMANENT OBSCURITY by Richard Perez reads weirdly like a teen novel or a juvenile delinquent melodrama. That was my first impression. These aren't the butt-kicking exploitation stereotypes that appear in Roger Corman movies of the 1970s or Russ Meyer movies of the 1960s, as mentioned on the book's website and referred to on the back cover. (Inside, the novel is even dedicated to Russ Meyer, director of such exploitation classics as Vixen and Faster Pussycat! Kill! .. Kill! …) If anything PERMANENT OBSCURITY unfolds like an urban teenage soap opera or comedy, except for the fact that they use dirty language and overindulge in drugs as any juvenile delinquent might. Even as far as the sex goes (kinky, bi-lesbian or otherwise), it seems driven more by naive curiosity than anything. Okay, I'll admit that there's a death – or two; but these are a result of accidents, not pre-meditated "femme fatale" dealings as the book's opening pages imply.

As the story begins, Dolores and Serena, the two principal characters, are struggling downtown dropouts who attempt to get by with the least amount of effort possible. The setting is New York City, but it could be any youthful hub: Portland or Austin or even San Francisco. The point is, these two girls are slackers, more or less, who want to live outside the workaday world – to indulge in art and explore their freedom, even if it means living hand-to-mouth (and live hand-to- mouth, they do). In another era, these two might've been called beatniks or hippies or punks. The only difference here – why this story might be considered satire – is that Dolores and Serena ultimately aspire to the same kind of tacky celebrity as most young Americans; their quest for fame seems more to be their purpose in "the arts" and, in a tragic ironic twist by the novel's end, they seem to achieve their goal.

Dolores is the narrator of this "true-life" juvenile delinquent melodrama, but it's actually Serena, her best friend, who supplies key elements of the central story. It's Serena's affinity for coke that gets them both into trouble, it's Serena seeing herself as a budding diva / dominatrix and fetish model that keeps them afloat and sets the stage for their "underground" filmmaking. It's ultimately Serena's self-absorption that brings unwanted tragedy too. And it's Serena that largely supplies the story with its love interest, as far as Dolores is concerned. Along the way, the author weaves traditional juvenile delinquent threads (dating back to the 1930s, at least): pregnancy, dissolution of family, alienation from society, unemployment, theft, even the use of ridiculous teenage urban slang, and of course alcohol and drugs. PERMANENT OBSCURITY is almost a compendium of juvenile delinquent pulp subject matter.

So, the moral of this "cautionary tale" you might ask? Don't mess with drugs or pornography, obviously. Avoid "the arts" unless you want heart-ache? In a funny way, yes. But, first and foremost, the novel seems to illustrate how being self-centered – and willfully out of touch with the world – can pose a threat not only to you but those around you. Several innocent (and maybe not so innocent) bystanders bite the dust in this story, and in the end the protagonists are even punished in a classic way as the entire book is revealed to be Dolores' jailhouse confession.