“As I would have put it at the peak of my Xiu Xiu fandom:
yesssssssssssssssssssssss.” —Emily Temple, Lit Hub
“A tragicomic
depiction of how Stewart used sex to cope with deep—and even tragic—family
dysfunction. At the beginning, Stewart offers a telling author’s note: ‘If we
are related, please, for the love of God, do not read this book.’ A powerfully
erotic memoir.” Kirkus Reviews
“Jamie Stewart has become my favorite literary figurine
with their tasty memoir Anything That Moves. Move over Denton Welch and
Monique Wittig there’s a new lovesexy kid on the block.” —Vaginal Davis
“Jamie Stewart smears themself across every page like a
sexorcism on bad acid. Deviant. Down and dirty. Get your freak on. Then wash
your hands.”—Lydia Lunch
“On its
surface, Anything That Moves would
appear to be a book about Jamie Stewart’s sexual history, but I found— as is
the case in Jamie’s work with Xiu Xiu— that it is more of a delineation of the
most hidden and forbidden parts of our subconscious, and the complicated and
insane ways we relate to ourselves and each other.” —Owen Pallett
“Jamie Stewart wraps up the first kiss-and-tell story in
this tome, ‘but I also put
my dick into a vacuum cleaner hose, so being on thee fuck list didn’t mean much’. Damn! But after you
dig in, it’s nowhere
near as cold-blooded as that. Not exactly tender but so truthful and present in
the timeline. Sexual antics try to kick off in very young pre-erection
childhood, and there’s a polemic in daring express child hyper-sexuality in
this reality where the specter of the child purity is held up. But possibly safe
in the first person. How to tell your mother you feel odd because the neighbor
child spunked in your butthole? Sometimes the deepest thinking is when the veil
of allusion is lifted, and boners fail, third wheels are not as advertised.
Sexual identity is fluid and casual, there is no poly-pan agenda. Stewart digs
into the situations that are horny and evolve into meaningful relationships (or
not), but doesn’t leave out the nugget of truth when hardcore masochism reveals
itself to be unhinged self harm. Impressively this is revealed without
judgement. Maybe one incident of anal brutality but always back to
pleasure. Not to give away the punchline
but even my jaded self almost puked in a rimming encounter, ‘I’d licked a tapeworm
out of her ass.’
Revelations and a deeper love and admiration for the man, I picked myself up
and rinsed myself off. There are no Daddy Issues in these stories but if that
chapter unfolds, it better fucking be me.” —Ron Athey
Booksellers on Anything
That Moves
“An ecstatic ritual purging of all the weird sex, abject
humiliation, visceral, bone-deep sadness, and sheer
laughing-in-the-face-of-it-all that a human life can accumulate in the course
of a few decades spent on this earth. For Stewart to have rendered so
compellingly on the page an exercise as profoundly uncomfortable as this one is
a remarkable feat, and I was absolutely here for it. One for the freaks.” —Ollie,
Pages of Hackney
“I
remember when I first heard Xiu Xiu over 15 years ago and from page one,
reading Jamie Stewart's Anything That Moves brought me right back to
that feeling. This book is honest, very funny and like all of Stewart's
work, it holds both a tender vulnerability while also deeply, truly not
giving a fuck what you think. Perfect.” —Liz Freeman, East Bay Booksellers
“An eternally underrated facet of Jamie Stewart’s oeuvre is
his instinct for the nauseously hilarious, delivered with shocking candor,
which comes through clearer than ever in Anything That Moves. It
should be read while on the make, drinking continuously and irresponsibly.”
—Michael Abraham, Book Culture
“Fans of lauded experimental band Xiu Xiu know exactly what
they're in for with Jamie Stewart's memoir, but for the uninitiated—this book
is an outrageous force of lunatic bravery. An onslaught of confessions about
desire in all of its messy forms, it jumps effortlessly from caustic to tender,
gross to hypnotic, straightforward to subversive. Like so much of Stewart's
work, Anything That Moves dares you to blink first, but will reward you
if you don't.” —Josie Smith-Webster, Greenlight Bookstore
Praise for Jamie
Stewart and Xiu Xiu’s most recent album, the duets collection OH NO
“On each track, the singer
Jamie Stewart’s voice quivers and throbs as he delivers brooding lyrics like an
operatic prince of darkness, pulling his collaborators deep into an underworld
of impenetrable synths, heavy industrial noise, and dramatic climaxes. The band
member Angela Seo, who produced the record, joins him for the haunting ‘Fuzz
Gong Fight’—proof that the album’s brightness lies in seeing a community of
musicians create baroque soundscapes together.” —New Yorker
“Xiu Xiu’s style of vicious,
black-hearted pop often sounds as if it were born in the darkness of a dark,
isolated room. It’s refreshing, then, to see acidic frontman Jamie Stewart open
his arms, if only slightly.” —A.V. Club
“They challenge you to turn
away, yet reward the brave and patient listener with flashes of startling
beauty.” —Dusted
“Jamie Stewart duets with more than a dozen indie, punk, and
experimental music colleagues, and what results is a surprisingly sweet
meditation on friendship, with nary a try-hard shock to be found . . .
Stewart’s gifts as a vocal performer and sound arranger result in elegant,
habitable art-pop . . . By not trying to shock us, Stewart actually surprises
us, and OH NO makes it easier to be a
Xiu Xiu fan than it’s been in years.” —Pitchfork