Exquisite Corpse, by Poppy Z. Brite

Reviewed by: Slappy

When the Blind Monkey asked me to pick a favorite love story of mine to review for the Valentine’s Day issue of BMR, I bored for days on which book to choose. And, as you have come to know, Slappy has some rather arcane tastes. So, here is my review, my opinion, of Poppy Z. Brite’s Exquisite Corpse.

Set mainly in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Exquisite Corpse is at it’s most, a love story and at it’s least, a love story. I know that may sound repetitive, but the one recurring theme in this book is love. Oh, and evisceration and mutilation. Did I mention the main romantic characters are both serial killers? One from England and the other, old money New Orleans? These two, Andrew Compton and Jay Byrne, haphazardly find each other amongst the waifs and lost children of the New Orleans French Quarter. Both with a penchant for perverse desires, they seem a more than likely match. But watch out! This is not your normal serial killer fall in love story! Andrew and Jay are competitors, also. Both wanting the possession of one young Vietnamese boy, Tran, whom they name the perfect victim.

Andrew and Jay consider murder an art. The most intimate art. And Brite does not hold any qualms about graphically depicting their forays into “artistic expression”. She has successfully blended splatterpunk horror (this monkey’s favorite kind of gore-riddled fiction) with what eventually boils down to an old fashioned, boy meets boy love story. Brite has “dissect(ed) the landscape of torture and invite(s) us into the mind(s) of killer(s)”.

Known for her ability to tell a story, heartbreakingly real characters and perfect, if not too perfect descriptive writing, Poppy Z. Brite has penned what I believe is the most amazing and startlingly frightening love story of this decade. Exquisite Corpse is not a book that would even hope to score on the Blind Monkey’s Mom-o-Meter; hell, it blew the meter all to pieces. But, for those of you with more enigmatic imaginations, Exquisite Corpse will not disappoint.

Hardcover – 240 pages Reprint edition (August 1996) Scribner; ISBN: 0684836270 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.61 x 8.04 x 5.26