Wrong - Softcover

Cooper, Dennis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1852423099 ISBN 13: 9781852423094

Publisher: Serpent's Tail, 1994

Synopsis

A collection of short stories that use death to probe the meaning in life introduces a man who abducts, molests, and murders young boys and a teenage rock band called Horror Hospital, among other grotesques.

About this title

From Library Journal

It is hard to imagine two more disparate books produced by the same man. As the editor of Discontents, a wide-ranging collection of stories by 56 queer writers, Cooper melds a flourish of often harsh and always autonomous voices into a coherent if not melodic whole. In Wrong, however, his own soft voice is singularly focused, using a minimum of themes and characters. As in Cooper's longer prose ( Frisk , 1991; Closer , 1989; both Grove), violent death and loveless sex are examined as a last means to understanding life--with ambiguous results. Describing the characters as victims and perpetrators seems almost too concrete, given their universal hollowness and longing. Though the stories are not uneventful, the reader remembers best the haunting tableaux created by the characters' haziness and lack of direction. Similarities aside, these stories do not merely rehash themes Cooper has investigated over ten years, but a couple are weak alongside the rest. In "Introducing Horror Hospital," for instance, Cooper's undercutting of Trevor's nihilistic pose seems almost trite. Yet the skillful conflation of two narrators in "Dear Secret Diary" alone makes this essential for all literary collections. In his one-paragraph introduction, Cooper calls Discontents "ultra-literary at the one extreme and post-literate at the other." Indeed, no commonality exists beyond the writers' unapologetic queerness. For the first time in a fiction collection a "queer aesthetic" is apparent, as distinct from the oft-cited but equally hard to define "gay aesthetic." In this new aesthetic, sex and sexuality are a given; the critique of and separateness from societal norms (both gay and straight) are prized; and multiculturalism is displayed at its best--not as politically correct conformity but as the empowerment of individuals by their individuality. Some of these writers have appeared in large-circulation gay magazines or have previous books to their credit, but most come from the fertile grounds of self-published magazines called "zines" (over 200 of which were represented at a recent conference in Los Angeles). Recommended for contemporary fiction collections and all academic libraries.
- Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Those familiar with Cooper's graphic homoerotic oeuvre (Closer, Frisk) might find this collection--impressions of sadism and pornography that too often lose their aesthetic distance- -interesting commentary from a writer compared to Sade and Genet. Be prepared, though: This is adolescent sexual aimlessness and psychotic violence with a vengeance. In ``Dear Secret Dairy,'' a series of pseudo-autobiographical reflections, a typical Cooper character, one who loves to fantasize about graphic homosexual sex and its relationship to death, complains that AIDS has ``ruined death.'' That is, it has all become too real--with the result that Cooper's odd mix of sociological perspective and grotesque hormone-driven narrative is almost dated. Even so, ``A Herd'' is a scary portrait of a killer, Ray Sexton, who abducts aimless boys (``stoned, standing or rocking from heels to toes in front of various backdrops'') and kills them: ``Ray loved being close to an almost dead body, smelling its haplessness, utilizing it as a lover.'' In the title story, there's more sadism: ``When Mike saw a pretty face, he liked to mess it up, or give it drugs until it wore out by itself.'' Unfortunately, Cooper, whose earlier books chronicled (and projected) a haunting world--a working-class gay version of Less Than Zero--is self- conscious in these tuneups. His prose is often mannered, his characters automatons who, despite lots of sex, never achieve fictional life. ``Dinner,'' for instance, is a verbal homoerotic equivalent of Hustler magazine, despite its lyricism, whereas the long ``Safe,'' despite its craft and moving passages, is a gay version of Ann Beattie--long on regret, failed relationships and texture, short on drama. ``Dead boys were floating up in the headlines....'' Here, Cooper is part psychic, acutely probing the blank frightening faces behind the news, and part sicko, getting off on gratuitous, and often very graphic, sex. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Serpent's Tail
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1852423099
• ISBN 13: 9781852423094
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 140