Matt Shaw – Porn

PORN tells the tragic tale of Victoria Sheldon – a young lady who wanted nothing more than to become an actress.

With times being hard Victoria finds herself in the world of the Adult Movie Industry where she soon carves a name for herself. The offers are flowing in, as is the money, as she becomes more and more popular amongst the producers but then she meets him…
A man with an offer she can’t refuse even if she wanted to. A man who has other ideas about how pornographic films should be filmed. A man catering for a much, much darker audience.

A novella by Matt Shaw doesn’t means to find a rollercoaster ride of emotions, but, according to AC/DC, to be on the highway to hell (Highway to Hell, 1979).
With Porn this journey starts just in front of the gates of hell – less to shorten the way, than to enjoy the view: welcome to the world of Matt Shaw!

The blurb says more than enough about the plot, so I won’t write about the content, but go straight to the book – to that typical "Shaw-Feeling".

Porn is an oppressive mixture of Steven R. Monroes I spit on your Grave (2010) and J.F. Gonzalez (RIP) Survivor: hate, despair, revenge, disdain and resignation potentiate into an infernal representation of the last bastion – the last stronghold of the moment.

Hardly anyone is grottier than Shaw, when it comes to giving the reader the feeling that they have a chance to escape.

This clear thought, this obvious destiny, which less justifies, than makes it indispensable …
… this awakening after the last rebellion, the decay as an imperative last act.

In addition to the ego-perspective, that almost wring the last tear out of the action, he always switches between the times, creating a timeline of pure razor wire, the reader will be trapped in – even the smallest breath makes the reality cut deeper into the own flesh; a movement or even an escape is unthinkable!

From the first page on Shaw has stabbed. From the first page on, the reader wallows in the cozy warmth of his own blood and only on the last pages, he realizes, that he’s dead already.

Porn?
That’s not just a fucking porn…
That’s a rape!
That’s Snuff!
A merciless desecration of the last hope!

Here the famous Happy End pukes – here it vomits blood and chokes to death on it…

…smiling.