(FORTUNE Magazine) – A performance artist in New York since the 1970s, Karen Finley offers monologues accented by shrill torrents of foul words, ideas, and acts. Often, after smearing her semi-naked body with food and debris, she leaves a mess on the stage . . . Her new book, Shock Treatment, brings together many of her monologues . . . In 1990, Finley was awarded a grant by the peer review panel of the National Endowment for the Arts but was then told . . . the grant had been rescinded. This year, the NEA reinstated her award . . . In ((her)) writings, Finley . . . wonders why men enjoy having a woman pop up out of a birthday cake; she conjures up some equivalent entertainments, using men for a women's party . . . A piece called ''Back to Nature'' opens with a man stopping his Jaguar in traffic to relieve himself along the side of the road. Finley . . . proposes that ''women get back to nature by peeing in public as well . . .'' For the open-minded, this book is a treasure of insight. -- From a book review in the San Francisco Chronicle.