What is the Bizarro (sp?) book genre like?

Question

I love reading edgy and out there books. Some of my favorite authors are Brett Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk. I have heard of a relatively new genre called Bizarro. Where is the best place to start as an introduction? I understand that the genre is fairly controversial with the subject matter which doesn't bother me, however I don't necessarily enjoy being disgusted. Is this genre worth looking into and can some give me a brief summary of literary merit of the genre? Basically, would I be wasting my time reading the genre.

Answer 1

I heard of it

I'm half German and half American and I read a german book.

It's called "Feuchtgebiete"

It's about a young girl,who had a lot of gross s*x experiences in her life.It is really weird written and very disgusting.This book was genre "bizarro"

Answer 2

Ellis and Palahniuk are more correctly considered transgressive authors, and that's the genre/movement that I like to spend my time wandering around in as well.  

To be perfectly honest I'm not too familiar with the ins and outs of Bizzaro, and only know one author who is billed that way.  I found him during my Irvine Welsh phase (another transgressive), and wasn't too impressed.  Here's a link to his newest book (I guess):  http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Lemur/T...

As for the literary merit - I'm not sure at this point it has any.  I've heard it referred to, have a friend who claims to be into it (though in all fairness he claims to be into just about everything), have read a little about it, but it doesn't go much farther than that.  From the little I've read it seems to be similar to splatter punk, just another sub movement for people who want to be trendy or ahead of the curve.  A key for establishing literary merit is that a book survives the test of time, so far none of these bizarro authors have really even be put to the test from what I gather.

I did a real brief internet search and came up with a bunch of interesting articles about it, you'll need to make your own decision on whether or not it's worth exploring - I certainly can't give a definitive yes or no:  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_fic...

http://www.bizarrocentral.com/

http://www.amazon.com/tag/bizarro%20fict...

I guess the only thing I can really say is that I know of Raw Dog Screaming Press and haven't heard any negatives about them.  Their editor seems to do a decent job, so the readings shouldn't be too difficult.  And I checked out After Birth Books just now - they look a little hokey but they have a book called The Bizzaro Starter Kit, presumably a collection of short stories or something, might not be a bad place to start out.

Have fun, hopefully it works out for you.