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KILL KILL FASTER ......................f a s t e r - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - By Joel Rose | Crown | 224 pages | Nonfiction "Kill Kill Faster Faster" is one of those interminable modern tough-guy crime books that sets out to blow the minds of all us snootybutt uptown types with its explosive poetry of the streets. And sure as God's in heaven, it'll have every literary, high-toned hipster who ever looked half-longingly at a Prada bag saying, Sacré bleu! because, you see, the world we live in isn't the real world. The real world is inside our prisons and in the streets. How could we not have realized this? But once you hear the book's narrator, the convicted "killer" turned hotshot writer Joey One-Way, explain the prison code of love as played out between him and his mighty-fine black lover, Clinique (!), you'll see how misguided you've always been: "First time Clinique fuck Joey it pure power. Pure power. It something between them. It something between men. It unsaid. It go unsaid. And it better. It better, sure as shit, go unsaid." If you've always wondered, What do these prison guys see in each other? this is the book for you. Of course, there's tons of hetero sex, too, because to the real hardened hard guy, everything else is just a substitute. Joey's story goes something like this: He's in prison for killing his wife, although he can't remember doing it and still loves her deeply. After writing a hit Broadway play called "White Man Black Hole," he's sprung by powerful TV guy Markie Mann, who wants him to punch up tired scripts. Joey promptly falls for Markie's urbane ex-prostitute-who-speaks-six-languages wife, Fleur, and the two start pleasuring each other. (Although, of course, sensitive guy that he is, Joey has certain -- uh -- limitations.) Tragedy is bound to ensue. Along the way, there's plenty of tough stuff to keep us on our toes, like a prison rape scene in which a guy gets his balls ripped off. (Then his face gets defecated on, then he's made to suffocate by choking on his own vomit. All just because he wanted a little nookie.) Natch, "Kill Kill Faster Faster" is also heart-stabbingly poignant, in a "No, it's nothing, just a little grit in my eye" kind of way. "Fleur, you're dead, you're dead, baby, and I'm back in the lockup and this, this has turned from a fuck book into the sad, sad story of Joey One-Way," Joey laments. But Joey's wrong. "Kill Kill Faster Faster" is still a fuck book. The big question, Gentle Reader, is: Who's on the receiving end? March 26, 1997 -- Stephanie Zacharek Stephanie Zacharek is a regular contributor to Salon. BOOKMARK: http://www.salonmagazine.com/sneaks/sneak.html