Hogg (1995)

Hogg is a novel by American author Samuel R. Delany, written in 1969 and published in 1995. The novel deals graphically with themes of murder, child molestation, incest, coprophilia, coprophagia, urolagnia, anal-oral contact, necrophilia and rape. It was conceptualized and written in 1969, with a further draft completed in 1973, and it was finally published with some further, though relatively minor, rewrites in 1995 by Black Ice Books. Two later editions have featured some corrections, the last of which, published by Fiction Collective Two in 2004, carries a note from Delany stating that it is definitive.

Content

Preface

The preface to the novel is titled "The Scorpion Garden". It is not included in the hardback edition from 1995, although it was written in 1973. It is included in The Straits of Messina (1989).

Description

The plot features a silent pre-adolescent boy (called only "cocksucker") sold into sexual slavery to a rapist named "Hogg" Hargus, who exposes him to the most extreme acts of deviancy imaginable.

These acts include a substantial amount of "rape, violence, and murder", such as "scenes of Hogg and his gang brutally raping various women" and other "extensive scenes involving consumption of bodily waste." Every chapter in the novel contains graphic sexual or violent acts.

Setting

The main events of the novel take place on June 26, 27, and 28, 1969, in an unspecified city. The narrator mentions various nearby areas—"Crawhole," "Frontwater," and "Ellenville"—apparently fictional neighborhoods. The nameless city is described as an industrial wasteland. The events take place at docks, garbage barges, truck-stops, bars, as well as within Hogg's truck. Many of the characters are described as workmen or wear work clothes.

In an interview with TK Enright, Delany states "[Hogg's] action takes place in Pornotopia—that is the land where any situation can become rampantly sexual under the least increase in the pressure of attention. Like its sister lands, Comedia and Tragedia, it can only be but so realistic." In the same interview Delany also states, "Hogg is another of my stories that takes place in the city of Enoch." Delany's Neveryóna takes place, in part, in Enoch.

Plot summary

At the start, the narrator is living with a Hispanic boy named Pedro and performing sex acts with older men in the basement of the dwelling for money, along with Pedro's teenage sister Maria. He engages in sex with Maria, Pedro, a gang of bikers, and a group of Black men. The narrator consistently assumes the bottom role in these sex acts. One out of the group of Black men chooses the narrator specifically, remarking that he appears of possible part-Black ancestry.

The second chapter takes place sometime after the narrator has left Pedro's. It introduces Hogg, first seen raping a woman in an alley. Hogg calls the narrator to him to "finish him up" orally. Hogg takes the narrator to his truck where he explains that while he is a trucker by trade, he prefers getting paid to rape women. Hogg also reveals a bit about himself and his personal history, painting a picture of his overall persona, which is one of extreme sociopathy, violence, and sexual sadism. They drive to meet Mr. Jonas, who despite his apparent wealth answers his own door and later is revealed to drive his own limousine. Mr. Jonas is Hogg's current client. After Mr. Jonas describes Hogg's next assignment Hogg states his intention to bring along several other men, and the narrator as well, to participate. At this point the narrator's place as Hogg's companion is solidly established.

Hogg and the narrator meet the other men—Nigg, Wop, and Denny—at the Piewacket bar. Nigg turns out to be the black man who the narrator first encountered at the beginning of the story. Wop is a violent Italian-American workman. Denny is a rather shy teenage boy, older than the narrator but quite a bit younger than the other men. The quintet of rapists set out to complete their jobs, which grow in succession from a single woman, a woman and her wheelchair-using daughter, and a nuclear family—mother, father and son. Each successive job increases in violence, and the victims' young children (male and female) are also descended on by the pack. During the third rape scene, Denny absconds to the family's kitchen where he decides to pierce his own penis using a nail. Soon Denny's penis begins to bleed, swell and pus, seemingly infected. At this point he begins repeating the phrase "it's all right."

When their last job is completed, the group retires to the Piewacket bar, where they fraternize with members of the Phantoms—the same biker gang encountered in the beginning of the novel. Nigg and one of the bikers, Hawk, hatch a scheme to sell the narrator to a black tugboat captain called Big Sambo. Without consulting Hogg, all three ride away on Hawk's motorcycle to meet Big Sambo at the docks in Crawhole. Big Sambo talks down the price and pays Nigg and Hawk fifteen dollars for the narrator. Big Sambo is a large, physically powerful tugboat operator who keeps his twelve-year-old daughter, Honey-Pie, around as a sex object for his own pleasure.

The narrator goes walking around the docks at night, where he overhears a radio on the deck of a garbage scow. The newscaster on the radio reports on a series of murders that has occurred recently—as it turns out, the suspect is Denny. This is confirmed to the reader when it is noted that the phrase "it's all right" is written in blood at the crime scenes. The Piewacket bar, where the gang had previously hung out, was attacked by Denny with gunfire. Several people including the bartender and some bikers were killed.