There's no getting around how deeply upsetting Hogg can be; it's transgressive porno-horror.  Turned my stomach on many occasions and I mostly had to take it one chapter at a time.

As unflinchingly graphic as Delany is with the many appetites of his characters, the relationships he crafts between them and their world are fascinating. Towards the end when the boy escapes the orbit of Hogg's crew it's unsettling to reflect on what kinds of violence merit police mobilization. Why are we so much more comfortable with graphic depictions of certain kinds of violence? How and why does the media and or censor its portrayals of reality, and what is distorted in this reflection? How different is this world from our own? There's so much more here about the overlap of pain, pleasure, morality, crime, and otherness.

It's insane that Delany was able to make this book as good as it is. Also as funny? Really not what you'd expect, but it's true. And the occasional moments of beauty were all the more heart crushing when held against the sensual treatment of the rest of the book. His skill is undeniable.