Peggy Munson has just published her first novel, Origami Striptease, which is also one of the winners of the first Project: QueerLit contest.

The novel concerns a lyrical love story between a writer and an enigmatic wanderer called Jack. By writer, I mean a journalist, an author of tell-all sex stories about her conquests of butches, transfolk, bois and other gender queers. Our narrator has been in the habit of keeping an emotional distance from her lovers but with Jack it is different and together they explore a tripped-out world of sex and illness.

Munson is a published poet, and her love of the word infuses this novel, which is written in an iambic meter. The author used this form to "keep my brain functioning through the cognitive problems I have from CFIDS (Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome)." To say the language is rich and luscious is an understatement. The author creates a fantastical landscape for her characters, with a carnivalesque sense of magic realism that is full to bursting with imagination. Could these strange settings be something to do with the fact that Munson was born in the town of Normal in Illinois? Who knows!

Origami Striptease also contains a lot of sex, albeit complicated literary sex that addresses trauma, illness, sexuality and gender. Munson states: "I don't like easy sex. I see sex as having such healing, redemptive potential, so I don't like to compartmentalise it from any aspect of life. I like to mix it all together, so that sex can embrace and transform all that is there."

But there's more to this novel than sex and poetry. Munson lives with CFIDS and her perspective as a woman with invisible disabilities infuses the work. As an activist she addresses the problems of people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities and encourages people to live a fragrance free life. Ideas around cultural ableism and the ways that people with CFIDS must negotiate relationships with caregivers, and a toxic environment, surround this novel like a blanket. Indeed, an interesting companion piece would be to read Munson's non-fiction work, Stricken: Voices from the Hidden Epidemic of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which was published in 2000, and compare it with her fiction.

Origami Striptease is a very bold first novel, packed with ideas, but it is not always an easy piece of work to read. One reader compares Munson to William Burroughs. I am not alone amongst my fellow reviewers in finding myself completely lost at times as to what was going on. I think that there is a danger in this work of the writer's love of language and a somewhat psychedelic imagination getting in the way of the narrative. For me it was a frustrating experience, though others didn't seem to care and just hung on for the ride. If you are likely to be irritated by this style of writing, avoid this book at all costs, but if you are not, jump in.

Origami Striptease, by Peggy Munson
Published by: Suspect Thoughts Press
ISBN: 0976341190

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