Danger Darling

Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite

Let’s talk about Poppy Z., shall we? The girl is straight wrong. She needs some therapy, and I’m not talking about next week.

Exquisite Corpse is chock-full of grisly descriptions of the numerous ways in which death can be carried out, from disease to cannibalism to good ol’ throat slashing. Although Ms. Brite borrows heavily from the crimes of Dennis Nilsen and Jeffrey Dahmer, fiends we serial killer fanatics have heard all too often about, boredom wasn’t on my mind while reading this garishly bloody book.

At one point during my perusal, I actually had to set the book down for the evening. I’m not a squeamish reader — true crime and horror are particular favorites of mine — but the scene she painted of one boy’s demise was so gruesome that I couldn’t bear to read further. My best bud Dirk had warned me that Exquisite Corpse was “right to the edge” of what he could take, but I just thought he was being a pussy. (Sorry, Dirk.)

Gore aside, the book is well written and fairly captivating, if you don’t mind strident breaks from reality, coincidence that borders on prophetic and emo homos.

On a scale of “Eh” to “FANFUCKINGTASTIC!” I’d give Exquisite Corpse a “What the fuck just smacked me in the brain?!” Read it right before bed if you enjoy fun nightmares in which you get AIDS and die as some goth kid munches on your intestines.