Blood and Guts in High School
1984 novel by Kathy Acker
Blood and Guts in High School is a novel by Kathy Acker. It was written in the 1970s and copyrighted in 1978, first being published in 1984. It remains Acker's most popular and best-selling book. The novel is a metafictional text, aware of its status as a fictional piece.
Plot
The book's heavily surreal and frequently disrupted narrative tells the story of Janey Smith, a ten-year-old American girl living in Mérida, Mexico, with her father, with whom she has an incestuous sexual relationship. Her father begins to spend all his time with another woman, Sally, leading Janey to realize that he hates her because he sees her as an obstacle to freedom. Janey's father agrees to let her move to the US by herself and puts her into a school in New York City. For a period of time he sends her money, but she later works in a hippie bakery, a job she despises. She has many sexual partners and gets two abortions. She joins a gang called The Scorpions, who eventually crash a stolen car while being chased by police.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Blood and Guts in High School” as 1984 novel by Kathy Acker. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1984 novel by Kathy Acker. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4927761. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1978 and 1984.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Blood and Guts in High School”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Blood and Guts in High School primary sources, Blood and Guts in High School archive and Blood research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Blood and Guts in High School”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Blood and Guts in High School” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.