Mars Needs Women

Abstract

Michael L. Shuman reviews Bramble, Infant Martian (Lulu), Donald L. Kaufmann’s 622-page novel, testing it against categories from autobiography to science fiction. Shuman finds it closer to New Wave writers such as Aldiss and Ballard and to F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre than to genre science fiction, and closest of all to the outlaw fiction of the Hipsters and Beats defined in Mailer’s “The White Negro.” He praises its fiercely original, hip language and places it beside later works such as David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. A note records Kaufmann’s death on October 13, 2015.