[2] Rene Chun, a journalist for The New York Times, described transgressive fiction: A literary genre that graphically explores such topics as incest and other aberrant sexual practices, mutilation, the sprouting of sexual organs in various places on the human body, urban violence and violence against women, drug use, and highly dysfunctional family relationships, and that is based on the premise that knowledge is to be found at the edge of experience and that the body is the site for gaining knowledge.
[6] French author Émile Zola's works about social conditions and "bad behavior" are examples,[7] as are Russian Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novels Crime and Punishment (1866)[8] and Notes from Underground (1864)[9] and Norwegian Knut Hamsun's psychologically-driven Hunger (1890).
[10] Sexual extravagance can be seen in two of the earliest European novels, the Satyricon and The Golden Ass, and also (with disclaimers) Moll Flanders and some of the excesses of early Gothic fiction.
Grove also published Hubert Selby Jr.'s anecdotal novel Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964), known for its gritty portrayals of criminals, and sex workers and its crude, slang-inspired prose.
[31] The notorious 1971 film version of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, contained scenes of rape and "ultraviolence" by a futuristic youth gang complete with its own argot, and was a major influence on popular culture; it was subsequently withdrawn in the UK, and heavily censored in the US.
[34] Other influential authors of this decade include Bret Easton Ellis, known for novels about depraved yuppies;[35] Irvine Welsh, known for his portrayals of Scotland's drug-addicted working class youth;[36] and Chuck Palahniuk, known for his characters' bizarre attempts to escape bland consumer culture.
[38] The early 21st century saw the rise of writers like Rupert Thomson, R. D. Ronald and Kelly Braffet with their protagonists further pushing the criminal, sexual, violent, narcotic, self-harm, anti-social and mental illness related subject matter taboos from the shadows of the transgressive umbrella into the forefront of mainstream fiction.
[39] Ronald's novels The Elephant Tree and The Zombie Room are based in the fictional city of Garden Heights, providing a fresh, contemporary melting pot to showcase the amalgamation of UK and US cultural and societal dissatisfaction and frustration, that had previously been portrayed very differently.
[42] Henry Miller William S. Burroughs Georges Bataille Vladimir Nabokov Hubert Selby Jr. J. G. Ballard Ryu Murakami Katherine Dunn Kathy Acker Bret Easton Ellis Dennis Cooper Irvine Welsh Matthew Stokoe Chuck Palahniuk Alissa Nutting Blake Butler Elle Nash Chris Kelso Nikanor Teratologen Jason Tanamor Virginie Despentes Charles Bukowski