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Chat Noir writes with rage clenched between its teeth, a distorted pulse, spitting out syllables like blood in an alley, in the fever of a body stitched together in haste—badly patched pieces and raw pornography dripping from the pages. Love burns acidic on the tongue: animal tang, traces of stepped-on shit and dried-up wine on poor floorboards. Cecília collapses and stumbles by, Paulo Pinto lets out a choked grunt in the corner of failure. Desire presses up against fear, sweaty, hitchhiking on the verge of nonsense—the next page is an abandoned street. Forget any idea of a story—only scars and shaky movement remain. The book starts brutally, a jolt of stops and starts, vomit stuck at the back of the throat; memory digs, claws at reason, opening craters where there should only be ground. Read and you’ll feel Chat Noir’s claw tightening around your neck, air fading till you scream in thought, until everything falls away and only merciless verbs throb. Who stays, stays because they’ve already plunged in, addicted, hopeless; stopping is indigestible. The text drinks you—first it tears, then licks your wounds. Here, the reader quickly learns to shut up and take, whole, the punch that