Ok, so I know I said that I was going to get to regular posting 2 weeks ago, but I went camping last weekend and had no internet. I finished this novel, Poppy Z. Brite’s Exquisite Corpse, a few weeks ago, and it’s been stuck in my head ever since.

I’ve read 3 other books by Poppy Z. Brite. I loved Lost Souls and Swamp Foetus. I didn’t like Drawing Blood so much. It felt more like fantasy than horror, and it was extremely homoerotic. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, and I don’t want it to seem like I’m trying to give off “no homo” vibes here. I was able to enjoy the romance between the 2 male characters; I just didn’t like the cum eating. I guess I’m the kind of person who really only enjoys reading descriptions of people ingesting bodily fluids when these descriptions are purposely written to gross the reader out.

Anyone who has read Exquisite Corpse will probably be giggling at my squeamishness right now. Both of Brite’s publishers (Delacorte and Penguin) refused to publish this book after Brite submitted the manuscript. This is one of the most disgusting novels I have ever read.

The plot focuses on the intersection of the lives of 2 gay couples. One of these couples has recently broken up, and the other is comprised of a necrophile and a cannibal. The results are deeply disturbing and depressing. I don’t want to give anything else away, but Jesus this book was fucking grim.

At an early point in the novel, I considered giving up. There were a few chapters that were basically just gay porn. These weren’t just descriptions of what happened. This was clearly erotic writing. I generally skim over lengthy sex scenes in novels, regardless of the genders of the participants. I didn’t do that here because I was half expecting something horrible to happen, but it didn’t, and now I fear that I am a gay man.

I’m joking of course, but I was half right. Extremely horrible things do start happening in this book, and they are written about in such a way that sets them far, far apart from the generic splatterpunk book I have read here before. It’s a combination of Brite’s skill with the written word and the juxtaposition with the sexy parts of this book that make the violence in here so disturbing. At the same time, the actual brutality on display here is full on. There’s nothing left to the imagination. The viscera and gore are upsetting, but Brite also describes the psychology of the sadistic murderers too, and it was those parts that I found most upsetting. There’s one bit that genuinely disgusted me where the murderer is describing how the body of their victim acquiesces to the violence its undergoing with a kind of longing.

This book is seriously fucked up. It’s dark, disgusting and depressing. There were numerous points throughout that made me feel nauseous and made me question my sexuality. All in all, I enjoyed it.