The F**k Dialogues

Delphine Lecompte is prodigious writer with a rabid cult following.

Her book, KITTENS IN THE BOILER, is like falling through the rabbit hole and landing in a seedy bar with Bukowski and Henry Miller serving the drinks tall and strong. The six stories she wrote for
20 Stories of Drifters, Drunkards & Dreamers will fuck with you.

Her prose, steeped in the blackest shadows of the darkest alleyways, brings into sharp focus a life led on and off streets most people are afraid to walk down. These stories are about survival by any means necessary with no happy endings at the end of the rainbow.

She is an editor’s nightmare. Her work is all confrontational fragments strung together with commas and brutal intent like e. e. cummings slipping into the land of bad fairies with the needle still stuck in his arm.

Picture Patti Smith, eyes closed under harsh stage lights, swaying as she rants and reels to Lenny Kaye’s guitar; all raw pain and pleasure brought to a climax with a scream of rage and release.

That is Delphine Lecompte. Uncompromising, unafraid and unrestrained.

She is a genius without peer or convention or rules.

Do you recall when you first heard the word fuck?

‘i’d fuck her’, a ruddy middle-aged bricklayer to his ruddy middle-aged colleague, as i was strutting by, i was nine

How did you develop your writing style?

i still need to develop it

Is it rage the fuels your writing or a need for release?

a little bit of rage and a whole lot of vermouth-induced paranoia

Is the world a hopeless place?

yes, but thankfully there are lots of hopeful songs, and – dare i say it – a fairly reliable man who makes great pancakes and never tires of trying to satisfy my insatiable and unreasonable sexual desires

Who do you read?

graham greene and ed mcbain

What is it about Liam Gallhager that you love?

his sunglasses, his swagger, the sweet song he wrote about his stepson (!!),his uncompromising bitchiness, his irresistible flippancy, the way he rolls his eyes when noels talks too much, his childlike bluster (it makes me want to take him in my arms and comb his hair)

What is the disc in you CD player right now?

martha wainwright*

Here is a snippet from Delphine Lecompte’s story, three tepid shots:

“why did your dad cripple you?”, “he was drunk, he mistook me for a rabid poodle and snapped my legs, when i yelped: ‘daddy, stop it, you’re mistaking me for a rabid poodle again!’ he somewhat sobered up and drove me to a sinister north french hospital..”

*Martha has provided the soundtrack to this anthology