Post by Dork Administrator on Feb 13, 2002 13:56:37 GMT -5
Poppy Z. Brite.
I admit, I was first turned on to Poppy Z. in a pictorial she shot for a punk skin mag called Rage. She was gothed out, naked except for a long fur coat and a pair of Doc Martins, and lounging around in a New Orleans cemetery. She also wrote some dialog for her pictorial that piqued my interest (other parts of me were already piqued). So I went to the local bookstore and purchased her latest novel at the time, Exquisite Corpse. I was hooked instantly.
Poppy's writing is hypnotic, fluid and dreamy, gorey and erotic. It can best be described as "Gothic." Her subject matter is stuff of nightmares and reality. The people in her novels are very tangible, and the situations, although surreal, are not impossible as with much of the genre's offerings. But it is her erotic subject matter that sets her apart. In the article in Rage, she wrote that she writes about men in homosexual encounters, in graphic detail, because that is what turns her on. And when she writes on this subject matter, it's very VERY graphic. She obviously meant what she said about typing with one hand...
If you haven't already, if you get a chance, check out some of Poppy's work. I recommend starting with Wormwood, which is a collection of short stories, and one which contains the first story about Steve and Ghost, two recurring characters in later novels such as Drawing Blood and Lost Souls.
I admit, I was first turned on to Poppy Z. in a pictorial she shot for a punk skin mag called Rage. She was gothed out, naked except for a long fur coat and a pair of Doc Martins, and lounging around in a New Orleans cemetery. She also wrote some dialog for her pictorial that piqued my interest (other parts of me were already piqued). So I went to the local bookstore and purchased her latest novel at the time, Exquisite Corpse. I was hooked instantly.
Poppy's writing is hypnotic, fluid and dreamy, gorey and erotic. It can best be described as "Gothic." Her subject matter is stuff of nightmares and reality. The people in her novels are very tangible, and the situations, although surreal, are not impossible as with much of the genre's offerings. But it is her erotic subject matter that sets her apart. In the article in Rage, she wrote that she writes about men in homosexual encounters, in graphic detail, because that is what turns her on. And when she writes on this subject matter, it's very VERY graphic. She obviously meant what she said about typing with one hand...
If you haven't already, if you get a chance, check out some of Poppy's work. I recommend starting with Wormwood, which is a collection of short stories, and one which contains the first story about Steve and Ghost, two recurring characters in later novels such as Drawing Blood and Lost Souls.
