"The Double Standard runs speedily, breathlessly, its art of breaking the self to pieces, abruptly, in its relentlessness. It is absolutely remarkable." – Helene Cixous

The Double Standard is an anticlimactic illustrated novella somewhere between fiction and creative nonfiction. The style is experimental and deadpan, with equal parts humor, pathos, and rage. A fair amount of sex and drugs are involved, with downtown New York City as a backdrop—but it's more discursive than erotic. Written in a parallel construction, two voices overlap and personal history conspires to repeat itself, déjà vu-style: a West Virginia teenage hippie chick in the '70s (sourced from Burkhart's actual diaries); and a thirty-something artist in the '80s, who leaves her junkie boyfriend after having an affair at an art colony. This is, however, merely set and setting for the real subject of the book, a self-reflexive analysis of the repetition compulsion.

 

 

Co-published with Hanus Press

 

100 pages, ISBN 0976544318