Mom Caught Me Reading Porn: A Book Review of 1982, Janine

By Aspen Kendrick-Cisneros

I initially chose to read 1982, Janine because I loved Alasdair Grey’s first novel, Lanark. Curiously enough, his second book, 1982, Janine, was so controversial the author himself has never been able to read it. So, I read it. 

I’ve never claimed to enjoy erotica as a genre and, prior to this novel, have never sought out erotic literature. However, in most erotica, the idea of plot seems looser, with the ability to take on absurdist situations: stranded on a planet of sexy blue aliens with massive cocks, for instance. Nothing that happens in the actual erotic portions of 1982, Janine is real to the canon of the story. These events are extraordinarily real in the imagination of Jock, the depressed, alcoholic man whose mind I accompanied through the story. 

What primarily intrigued me were the almost mythological rumors of the violent and descriptive sex scenes that take up the narration. I wanted to know if this was true and, if so, whether they work within the context of the rest of the novel. Can pornography have a place in literature and will it propel a story efficiently? I don’t know if that question will be ever answered without divisiveness, but specifically in 1982, Janine, it did. 

The bulk of Jock’s fantasies revolve around control, with a heavy dose of an Oedipus complex. We are introduced to Janine, described as a Jane Russell character; Superb, short for Super Bitch; Helga; and Big Momma, a sadistic fat lesbian. Grey puts a great emphasis on plot; the pornographic fantasy must work for Jock to climax at the same time as the climax of the plot, for the characters to play their proper roles, and his ever encroaching and unwelcome thoughts on the world outside his dingy hotel room should not interrupt him. 

Jock can be Cupid in his fantasy, tattooing crude language on a naked and tied up Big Momma. Jock can be Max, bringing in his girlfriend to be trained and shared between the big men of the company recruiting hot women for their pleasure. However, we get flashes to real life, to the sad Scottish hotel room where Jock downs a bottle of pills. The insane typography in Chapter 11 is related, bringing together God, the fantasies, and the screaming of Jock’s body. 

Jock’s fantasies propel the story along, not fully through their own plot but via Jock’s accompanying stream of consciousness. For example, he tries desperately to reject thoughts about his mother and Big Momma who have “NO CONNECTION AT ALL… AND MOMMA’S NATURE IS BASED ON NOBODY REAL AT ALL.” All this distraction and illusion of control shows how Jock had been living his life before the events of this story. He thinks he needs his fantasies, needs the women's bodies, needs their lives. He thinks to distract himself from his pain over losing his wife, the state of the government, his place as a Scottish man colonized by the British. 

Jock needs his fantasies and for us to hear his story the way it should be heard, and we need them too. We need them to see that Jock is not just his Oedipus complex, and he is not just the product of colonialism. Even something that should be as black and white as a depressed man having rape fantasies in his hotel room can be a moment contracted and expanded on. One night only lasts so long and even if the next morning is an illusion, it’s still an opportunity.

1982, Janine is a pornographic, sadistic, masochistic, rambling story told through whiskey and pills. I would not wish it on anyone to spend too much time locked away with Jock’s mind for company. But Jock, his women, and the worlds he visits over one night linger with me. The breadth of Alasdair Grey blows me away constantly. Maybe this is simply a shameless plug for Grey’s winding and fantastical art forms but I do not find myself upset at that. Alasdair Grey’s books have largely been ignored on the international level and even the success of Poor Things (2023) did not attract increased attention to his novels or visual art. 

I cannot help but demand for more attention to be paid to his works outside of the Scottish political setting. Much of his work speaks to a global level of industrialization, and the machinations of the colonialist world that nearly put Jock six feet under and may put all of us in the same place.