It appears that 2008 is going to be the year I plunge blindly into the ever-growing morass of uninspired and weak drivel that is gay literature. Every other book I pick up concerns one recurring element; completely unbridled homosexual revelry. And I’ll be honest; I’m disappointed. One would think that in all that time that the homosexual minority is busy being shunned, alienated, and whatever else they gripe about in their heart-wrenchingly ‘honest and unbiased’ tales of ostracism (generally being so so so alone and obviously with time on their hands, enough to, you know, write books), they would use that time to come up with a decent story, instead of piddling and embellished Seinfeldian meanderings loosely based on the ‘unfathomably-hilarious-yet-sorrowful’ chain of events which has defined their lives. Wrong. In order to try and help them save a little face, I’ll venture that they must be too preoccupied with their stylish drug habits to present a finished product worth its weight in axolotl shit. tOn a positive note, with the list of homocentric books I’ve read this year readily available, any of my friends who have been questioning my own morbid sexuality for years may now have some flimsy foundation to base their assumptions on, instead of their baseless, previous claims involving my disrobing them and taking pictures while they’re passed out, or gleefully pairing male action figures in positions they were never intended to assume, or festooning every scrap of paper with a stick figure attached to some freakishly-proportioned and climaxing tool, or even the little trifle of asking them to break out the tummysticks.tOn another bright note, for all the children out there, starstruck and amazed by the antics of that wicked-awesome rapscallion Harry Potter and his loyal crew, let it be known that Exquisite Corpse does indeed deliver a reference to the Hand Of Glory (that gnarly thing Draco ‘Small-Time’ Malfoy had); albeit only in the form of a cleverly named Gay Bar in New Orleans, where a pair of mass-murdering, cannibalistic, homosexual necrophiliacs meet, and let the clandestine forces of fortune's favors lead where they may.tOh, wait, that’s right, you might want to leave this off the bedtime reading list, this book is indeed about the extremely carnal courtships between two ridiculous couples; one pair is a recently-acquainted duo of gay murderers that feast on the cooling flesh of their victims in whatever way suits their unspeakable ends, and the other couple are two drug-addled queer fiends tiptoeing through the treacherous terrain of a generation either infested with or constantly beset by the dread AIDS virus, basically, the kind of forgettable and unwanted byproducts of society that we’re more than happy to provide as sacrificial lambs to the niche-market players like the former couple. Does the story’s awkward milieu somehow satirically reference our own decadent age, in which an impersonal-and-compassionless-society-run-amok produces psychopaths and also creates a substrata of victims? Did Poppy Z. Brite actually stumble across some sort of social relevance in this otherwise lacking tale? tDon’t be fooled; if anything I’m trying to help Brite out here, there is absolutely nothing of substance or worth within. This should have been the book on trial in “The Seven Minutes”; while I guess I’m ‘against’ censorship, I’m twice as opposed to abject stupidity, and Exquisite Corpse certainly makes its case for belonging in that category.tBut don’t take my word for it, let’s bring out the cast and let them speak for themselves:tAndrew Compton: Mass-murderer, homosexual, necrophiliac, AIDS-infected, and worst of all, a Londoner.tJay Byrne: Mass-murderer, homosexual, necrophiliac, cannibal, recreational drug abuser, alleged Cajun.tTran Vinh: Lissome and hairless North Vietnamese homosexual, recreational drug abuser, runaway, presumed to have contracted AIDS.tLuke Ransom : AIDS-infected homosexual junkie, aspiring misanthrope, moron, pirate radio personality, author, and a grown man with infantile emotional development. As his on-air alter ego of Lush Rimbaud, Luke manages to put into summation everything I admittedly don’t like about gay culture during his rants, poor ‘victim’ of the epidemic that he is.tWith a cast like that, how can you possibly go right? Nimrods all; you can only hope for the worst for them, but unfortunately, you know that someone has to make it out alive. But, should this totally hopeless cast not be warning enough, let me give you a taste for what you are really in for, as this book is basically just a glimpse into the gender-confused soul of Poppy Brite, whose penis-envy and partiality for cadavers spills forth from every page. Published in 1996, Brite was obviously fascinated by Jeffrey Dahmer, and presumably longed for a phallus of her own with which to plumb his depths while engaged in an orgy of self-mutilation and unbound buggery, if only to be rewarded by the acquisition of HIV to justify her deeds.tIf the characters weren’t bad enough, Brite’s ‘style’ seals the deal on this dud. Some chapters are told in the first-person past-tense of Andrew, the rest are all third person omniscient in the present, which is relatively annoying (and lame). It’s also very lame that while Andrew is the only one from the UK, everyone else thinks in ‘proper’ english spelling. These stylistic complaints pale in comparison to the inanity constantly pouring from the stunted thought processes of the focal characters:t“AIDS had eaten huge holes in the older gay population, levying an outrageous surcharge for the revels of the preceding decade,” Luke whines while reminiscing, sending out an open invitation to join his pity-party. (Note: this party is BYOB; Bring Your Own Boy-toy)t“He wondered what the slackers, technoheads, and baby peaceniks at the rave tonight would thing about that. Probably they would think it was cool, that such people were in touch with the earth, which they all wanted to save as long as they didn’t have to stop dancing to do it,” Tran sagely contemplates, oblivious to the fact that he is the epitome of this unfavorable condition, and that his own flamboyantly queer dancing days are leading him on a collision course with perverts beyond his comprehension.tAnd lastly, the predominance of this romantic stuff: “He’d rubbed his mouth across those velvety muscular globes, licked a wet stripe down the center, teased the sweet bud of the asshole until it opened to his tongue…he had rolled on top and rubbed himself to orgasm in the spit-damp crack of Tran’s ass, then wallowed in the wet warmth of his own come for a long time.”tI’m not about to play the holier-than-thou card and besmirch the time-honored act of laying in one’s own post-coital filth, but let’s face it, when the only time you hit the mark in your novel is describing some asscrack-tonguing, you should probably reconsider your worth as an author.Please note that this despicable trash warrants two stars for the following reasons: 1) it isn't The Bell Jar, 2) it is April Fool's Day.
The author writes on her website that both her U.S. and British publisher turned down this, her third novel, due to its shocking and controversial subject matter. I can't help but think both firms also considered it something of a mess.Brite wrote her vampire novel, Lost Souls when she was nineteen. It's gloriously overwritten and steeped in perverse atmospherics. Then came Drawing Blood, a gay romance with supernatural elements, considerable amounts of blood, and a happy ending. Here are the basic plot elements of Exquisite Corpse:1) Andrew Compton, a convicted British necrophile, plays dead and escapes from the autopsy room, to London, to Atlanta, to New Orleans.2) Jay Byrne is the debauched scion of an old New Orleans family. Actually, he redefines "debauched." He rapes, tortures, slowly murders, and eats bits of street boys and stows their corpses in the old slave quarters of his French Quarter mansion. )The NOPD must not have a very active Code Enforcement Department.)3) These two meet.4) Tran, a young, Vietnamese acid dealer is consistently drawn to the wrong men. 5) Tran's ex-lover is an HIV positive operator of a pirate radio station and goes by the name Lush Rimbaud.6) There is a fantastically lurid climax.After over-writing her first novel, Brite began paring down her prose, and Exquisite Corpse has the icy precision such disgusting subject matter requires. Passages made me realize just how antiseptic Showtime's Dexter really is. You will come away from the novel with more information on just how dying bodies come apart and how the dead look, feel, and taste than I hope you would ever have any need of. But what is this thing about? HIV and AIDS are pervasive subject matter. The novel was published in 1996, and the disease is treated as a death sentence and yet ignored by most of the characters. The two killers are relentless, implacable death to the boys who cross their paths. Is there symbolism here? Brite was also writing when the sensational cases of Jeffrey Dahmer and Wayne Gacy were fresher on peoples' minds. One long scene comes directly from what we learned about the Dahmer case. Is this an experiment in fleshing out, so to speak, the news reports we read and find unimaginable when such atrocities are brought to light? Or is it grand guignol fun?It's a little bit of all those things but never a very satisfying novel. And I read that Brite has abandoned horror and now writes novels about running a restaurant in New Orleans.
What do You think about Exquisite Corpse (1997)?
Frankly, it's a terrible book that's extremely well written. It's been at least 5 years since the last time I read Exquisite Corpse, but it's the kind of book that sticks with you. It's brutal and deals very bluntly with nightmarish topics like cannibalism, necrophilia, murder, the careless spread of HIV/AIDS between characters and so on. I have to admit that I found the whole book fascinating. The first time I picked it up I was 17 years old. And it was horrible. I hated it and I loved it. It captures the dismal, bleak moody horror of that window of time in the late 80's- 90's when AIDS was at its peak. When everyone was afraid of it and it was obvious why. It was a concept I had no personal experience with, but goddamn, it felt fucking real.I liked Exquisite Corpse for the same reasons other fans did I imagine. I was a confused teen. My entire wardrobe was devoid of anything resembling color. I listened to bands like Alien Sex Fiend or Christian Death. It was fun to embrace the horror. And when I nostalgically pick it up again every few years, it's still horrible. But it was a moment of time, a little puzzle piece in my life that is just there. Hated and loved.
—Ceann Steeltown
wow I honestly don't know what to think with this book or where to start.I spent most of the book wondering how many stars to even give it because in all honesty I am not even sure I liked it. The best way to describe this book its to liken it to a pile up on the M1, you don't want to keep reading/watching but you have to you hope its not to gory but you keep reading when it it.Sometimes I was like....then I was....However the story line/plot was fantastic and the way poppy tells the story really takes you into the mind of a psycho> All in all I am glad I read this book and manage to finish it, it was a roller coaster ride from start to finish and it is certainly NOT for the faint of heart this book sucked me right it and will not let me go for a long time now I have read the last page.I finally decided on 4 stars for the journey the author took me on.
—Beth
I very, very rarely quit on a book halfway through. I always feel guilty and have to slog through it just so I can feel like I gave it a fair chance. This was one of the few books I couldn't stand to finish. Now, I'm not squeamish, so the gore and sociopathy described in the book didn't bother me at all. What did was the lack of dimension in the characters (Brite seems to think that writing characters who are evil and disturbed will automatically give them some sort of depth - it doesn't) and the lack of... moral, for lack of a better word, throughout the story. From what I could tell, there was no point to the book except for a teen goth-esque "nyah, nyah, look how dark and twisted I am, look what I can write". And the only prose that's purpler is Anne Rice's. Frankly, the writing was over the top, the characters not only flat but unlikeable (and believe me, likeable and serial killer are not mutually exclusive) and mostly, I was just bored.
—Katya
