Name: Exquisite Corpse
ISBN: 9780684836270

Poppy Z. Brite

From the author of Lost Souls, Drawing Blood, and Wormwood comes a thrilling and chilling novel that bestselling author Peter Straub says serves as a “guidebook to hell.”

To serial slayer Andrew Compton, murder is an art, the most intimate art. After feigning his own death to escape from prison, Compton makes his way to the United States with the sole ambition of bringing his “art” to new heights. Tortured by his own perverse desires, and drawn to possess and destroy young boys, Compton inadvertently joins forces with Jay Byrne, a dissolute playboy who has pushed his “art” to limits even Compton hadn’t previously imagined. Together, Compton and Byrne set their sights on an exquisite young Vietnamese-American runaway, Tran, whom they deem to be the perfect victim.

Swiftly moving from the grimy streets of London’s Piccadilly Circus to the decadence of the New Orleans French Quarter, Poppy Z. Brite dissects the landscape of torture and invites us into the mind of a killer. Exquisite Corpse confirms Brite as a writer who defies categorization. It is a novel for those who dare trespass where the sacred and profane become one.

Exquisite Corpse

Aimee :)

My name is Andrew Compton. Between 1977 and 1988 1 killed twenty-three boys and young men in London. I was seventeen years old when I began, twenty-eight when they caught me. All the time I was in prison, I knew that if they ever let me out I would continue killing boys. But I also knew they would never let me out.

it was the subtle whisper and slice of the razor that appealed to me. I liked my boys as they were, big dead dolls with an extra weeping crimson mouth or two.

I began to write about the things that interested me now. I found myself with a great many descriptions of murders and sex acts performed upon dead boys. Small details began to return to me, such as the way a fingerprint would stay in the flesh of a corpse's thigh as if pressed into wax, or a cold thread of semen would sometimes leak out of a flaccid penis as I rolled it about on my tongue.

My hands itched for the blade, for the warmth of fresh blood, for the marble smoothness of flesh three days dead.

For the first time in five years I had a beautiful dead boy at my disposal, and there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it.

No one would guess I had already killed two men today, and meant to do a third. But that was the whole point, wasn't it?

But if he could still see me, I wanted him to know I wasn't doing this because I hated him. Quite the contrary. Before, I had only seen him as a means to an end. But in these final moments of his life, I loved him.

Jay smiled. The boy smiled back. He had to; most of the flesh around his mouth had been scraped or burned away, and his smile was a rictus of bleach-white teeth set in bleeding gums.

Luke hated the world because it would go on after he was dead.

Now came what ought to be the best part, the part he hated. to rush through. Jay pressed his thumbs into the soft V of skin at the base of the breastbone, ran them down the line bisecting the torso until they slipped into the gaping abdominal wound. He spread the wound tenderly, pulling its edges up and apart until the skin began to tear. It was very slippery going, and he had to use the knife in places, but soon he had the body split wide open from crotch to thorax, a wet festival of scarlet.

The heat of freshly exposed organs wafted up at him. Jay lowered his face into the visceral stink, the stew of blood and shit and secret gases, the innards' rare perfume. His eyelids fluttered and his nostrils flared with pleasure.

He could sheath his cock, but his hands needed to feel the silken textures of their wounds, their slick interiors. And considering the other ways in which he used their meat, he supposed it was silly to bother taking any precautions at all.

A living person had the option of walking away. Mummified heads and bleached bones couldn't even dream of such disloyalty. All Jay's boys became part of him. They would be with him forever, flesh of his flesh, loving him from the inside.

Then he fell to his knees and buried his face in the hanging man's belly. He sank his teeth into flesh that had gone the consistency of firm pudding. He ripped at the edges of the wound, pulling off strips of skin and meat, swallowing them whole, smearing his face with his own saliva and what little juice remained in this chill tissue. He ran his hands up the spine, between the buttocks, slipped a finger into the asshole and saw it wriggling deep in the hollow inner cavity. At some point he ejaculated, and the semen ran down his thigh almost unnoticed, a small sacrifice to this splendid shrine.

‘I know his inflections, his phrases, even the way he clears his throat. Haven't you ever been in love?'

But I'm Lush Rimbaud, and I refuse to shut up or die. And I waste what little breath I have left talking trash about people like you who've made an actual difference in the world. I know I never have and never will.

‘I don’t want to redesign the world, I just want to take it down with me.'

In a few hours he would have to conjure up something for dinner, something simple but exquisite, some toothsome delicacy.

Something suitable for a beautiful boy's last meal.

Tran was his rightful lover in this world. He had shucked the ballast of WHIV, and he no longer cared whether he finished his novel. This was the real story, the only one whose ending he still cared about.

The definition of "art isn't always fun". This book is not an easy read by any means. Extremely gory and graphic, but it's a very very good perspective on the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 90s. It's really well written, and I'd recommend a read if you can handle extreme, grotesque details of gore and violence!

Max Riley

Yet another to add to my collection of “favorite books that I’ll never recommend to anyone”. This one is for the Hannibal girlies for sure.

Bowie 

This book is meant to be disturbing, so it is definitely rated kind of highly for that alone. So many parts of this just made me feel so gross, but even then i found myself somewhat getting attached to these despicable characters, which honestly makes me feel weird. I did find some POVs boring, i liked being with the murderers because i wanted to read more about their mindset. I did get bored often, which is why it’s not rated any higher. Not to mention, i feel like the story began when i was over 60% in this book, where the two characters meet and that’s not really enough in my opinion.

extremely odd and uncomfortable, could be written a hundred times over though. boring gore fest

donna 

eerrrmmm would have been a really great gorey splatterpunk gay mess but i was heavily distracted by the author's obvious asian fetish? u could not go two pages about the only asian character without reading something that sounds like it was said by a (white) person who was alive when they discovered electricity. i would include an example but i don't have the mental energy.. i'm just going to let u know i had to read the term "rice queen" more than once and the word "oriental" like forty billion times!!!!! LOL!!!!! and because this bothered me so bad i obviously had to look up to see if other people felt the same and saw very little commentary about it (which doesn't surprise me as a majority of the enjoyers of this subgenre are hwhite as hell) but did see that the two main serial killer characters were heavily based off of dahmer and nielsen, and that the death of tran - the exploited and sole asian character other than his stereotype of a father - was based!!! on a real life murder of a 14 year old!!!! i am going to barf!! the only redeeming quality this book has is that the writing is beautiful, but again i was distracted by how awful other aspects were. it's a shame! 

riss

jess larry

dnf at 33%, trop de blabla not enough action

Amanda Autumn Berrey

Alex Hauger

Maria Kais

Rowan Myers

It's odd, reading this book a few times over the course of the twenty years it's been around. As a kid, I thought it was this super deep love story. As a twenty something, I related to my friends succumbing to disease. (Certainly not as much as those who lived through the eighties, but the idea of getting any STI was terrifying, the idea that sex and my body could hold death, anathema to how I saw sex).

As a 35 year old, I see the hedonism and the fear. Luke, my least favorite character, became the one I wished was the protagonist.

It took me a looooong time to finish this. i’m a lover of the macabre and the disgusting but this is next level. advanced spooky readers only. the author knows exactly how to describe something horrific and do it without a dusting of purple prose to make it easier to digest. it sits heavy in the stomach and makes everything taste sour for a bit. in the best way. 

i will say i was more emotionally attached to Andrew than Jay, but them together scratched that fucked up itch i have for murderous couples. 

castor

It took me a looooong time to finish this. i’m a lover of the macabre and the disgusting but this is next level. advanced spooky readers only. the author knows exactly how to describe something horrific and do it without a dusting of purple prose to make it easier to digest. it sits heavy in the stomach and makes everything taste sour for a bit. in the best way. 

i will say i was more emotionally attached to Andrew than Jay, but them together scratched that fucked up itch i have for murderous couples. 

This book has a very bleak tone throughout its entirety. 

 It presents gay issues through immoral characters, it stays consistent in its themes. The lack of anyone having good morals is depressing, it still makes you still feel for some characters that horrible stuff happens, but yeah. 

 The narration is intentionally offensive a lot of the time since it's either narrated by a serial killer or an abusive boyfriend. There's a lot of flowery language around gore and glorification of abuse (as expected when the cast includes serial killers). 

 I struggle with my thoughts on it, I am not very familiar with gay scenes despite being gay myself, and this book features the worst aspects of it. Makes you feel you shouldn't trust anyone ever. 

Nota

This book has a very bleak tone throughout its entirety. 

 It presents gay issues through immoral characters, it stays consistent in its themes. The lack of anyone having good morals is depressing, it still makes you still feel for some characters that horrible stuff happens, but yeah. 

 The narration is intentionally offensive a lot of the time since it's either narrated by a serial killer or an abusive boyfriend. There's a lot of flowery language around gore and glorification of abuse (as expected when the cast includes serial killers). 

 I struggle with my thoughts on it, I am not very familiar with gay scenes despite being gay myself, and this book features the worst aspects of it. Makes you feel you shouldn't trust anyone ever. 

 A lot of sadness about drugs, and HIV.

From the author of Lost Souls, Drawing Blood, and Wormwood comes a thrilling and chilling novel that bestselling author Peter Straub says serves as a “guidebook to hell.” To serial slayer Andrew Compton, murder is an art, the most intimate art. After feigning his own death to escape from prison, Compton makes his way to the United States with the sole ambition of bringing his “art” to new heights. Tortured by his own perverse desires, and drawn to possess and destroy young boys, Compton inadvertently joins forces with Jay Byrne, a dissolute playboy who has pushed his “art” to limits even Compton hadn’t previously imagined. Together, Compton and Byrne set their sights on an exquisite young Vietnamese-American runaway, Tran, whom they deem to be the perfect victim. Swiftly moving from the grimy streets of London’s Piccadilly Circus to the decadence of the New Orleans French Quarter, Poppy Z. Brite dissects the landscape of torture and invites us into the mind of a killer. Exquisite Corpse confirms Brite as a writer who defies categorization. It is a novel for those who dare trespass where the sacred and profane become one.

ellie

tw: gore; murder; torture; rape; necrophilia; cannibalism; homophobic and racial slurs; mentions of HIV/AIDS

Exquisite Corpse

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