PERMANENT OBSCURITY, or the full title: "PERMANENT OBSCURITY: Or a Cautionary Tale of Two
Girls and Their Misadventures with Drugs, Pornography and Death by Dolores Santana (as told to Richard Perez)'', published in 2010 by Ludlow Press, is neo-sexploitation novel and dark
comedy written by New York Times contributor, Richard Perez, author of The Losers' Club, a novel set in the East Village in the 1990's, which has been translated into three languages: Italian , Turkish, and Korean. The story of PERMANENT OBSCURITY, broken into three parts: "The
Kinky Hook," "Strange Hungers," "No Man's Land" -- takes place in New York City's East Village (circa the Bush
era), and it chronicles the rise and fall of a
unique and intense relationship. The main characters, Dolores and Serena, two chemically dependent, down-and-out artists set out to take control of their lives by making a fetish-noir/femdom movie. Of course, things don't exactly turn out as planned.
PERMANENT OBSCURITY: Or a Cautionary Tale of Two
Girls
and Their Misadventures with Drugs, Pornography and Death by Dolores Santana
(as told to Richard Perez)
* A youthful bohemian satire,
* a story of alienated nonconformists,
* a "
girls on the
lam" story,
* a sexploitation and S/M romp,
* a spoof of
cult celebrity and "
true-life" tabloid sensationalism
"
Dope reduces the anxiety of social life, especially in an underground
art and rock scene simultaneously characterized by
chronic insecurity and outsize egos, relentless status competition and the stark alternatives of sudden success and permanent obscurity.” -- from an article on heroin in The Village Voice (dated August 23, 1994)