"Wrong" by Dennis Cooper (High Risk)

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I should have heard about Dennis Cooper years ago. He writes extreme horror. I publish horror. I read horror. I grew up reading Stephen King and watching slasher movies. Only Dennis Cooper was writing for the literary audiences. Instead of selling his serial killer tales to Cemetery Dance or Weird Tales, he was putting out punk zines and winning literary awards like Lambda and Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He wrote non-fiction articles to pay the bills and published with small presses like Soft Skull. His zine published Debra Harry and Andy Warhol.

Dennis Cooper is a “transgressive writer” in LGBT and academic circles. He has leveraged his renown to run literary art centers and curate exhibits. He's been an artist in residence. He's certainly one of the most interesting High Risk writers. Yet, one can't read “Wrong” without thinking about how this story of gay men preying on each other and extreme BDSM would be welcome in a splatterpunk anthology. Many of his works, including the celebrated George Miles Cycle are about gay men torturing and killing each other.

“Wrong” begins with Mike, a serial killer, who tortures and kills his conquests. Eventually, he gets bored and shoots himself. Enter George, a tourist. George goes to the same bars and picks up the same kind of men, until one kills him. George watches his roommate and fades away.

Dennis Cooper could have been a pulp writer, a horror writer, an erotic writer or a hip popular writer Yet, he's a cult writer with a devoted literary audience. Why a writer becomes popular in one area and obscure in others is a strange combination of happenstance, marketing and associates. Consequently, Dennis Cooper reminds me of several writers that are more popular in my particular writer groups - namely Poppy Z. Brite, Michael Hemmingson, Brett Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk.

Poppy Z. Brite

Dennis Cooper wrote horror for an LGBT literary audience. Poppy Z Brite wrote LGBT books for a horror audience. Lost Souls and “Wrong” both came out in the early 1990s with both Cooper and Brite as oddball writers in their genres. Poppy Z. Brite was one of the first horror writers to have write about explicitly gay and pansexual characters. Exquisite Corpse is much like “Wrong” as it depicts gay serial killers in the age of AIDS, after many gay men had unintentionally killed each other.

However, Cooper and Brite were very different. Cooper was born in 1953 and started writing professionally in the 1970s. He writes like an exhausted survivor. His characters are nihilistic and nasty. Brite also writes evil characters, but his Generation X identity comes through. His LGBT characters - whether they are vampires, artists or murderers – are seeking a belonging. Cooper wrote for an angry betrayed generation of gay men. Poppy Z Brite was the most exciting voice in horror and gave his audience community when the internet was BBS and unix shells.

One wonders what would have happened if their careers had been reversed. Possibly, Brite would have had more success with Liquor and its sequels, instead of getting publisher's notes about how he should stick to horror. Cooper could have been rejected by the horror community which was quite homophobic when he started writing, or he could have been a celebrated Splatterpunk writer, invited to multiple horror conventions with several Stoker awards on his shelf. It's an interesting thought experiment, but it's hard to imagine either Brite as a High Risk author or a Cooper book with a Stephen King blurb.

Brett Easton Ellis

Dennis Cooper often gets mentioned alongside Brett Easton Ellis and they definitely like each other. He even said that his friends told him not to read Ellis because they thought that Ellis was ripping him off. They both write nasty. As a college friend once said “Who reads these books? Does anyone read Rules of Attraction and think 'That's me! I can totally relate!'” Ellis doesn't write relatable sweet characters that you like. Ellis writes empty headed psychopaths with zero self-reflection. Fortunately for Ellis and his fans, two movie adaptations – Rules of Attraction and American Psycho – reveled in the nihilism.

Cooper and Ellis love to write about loathsome shitbags who fuck and kill and shit on each other. Besides dead George wishing that he could have snuggled at the end of “Wrong”, there's really no redemption arc. Most writers want to be loved. They want to bring their audience to tears or catharsis. Easton and Cooper don't give a fuck. You can't read their books all the time, but that kind of in your face fuck off attitude is refreshing.

Chuck Palahniuk

Cooper is a fan of Palahniuk and certainly, “Guts” is the kind of story that one imagines Cooper writing. Palahniuk's characters pretend to choke to make friends, go to sex addict meetings to get laid and set up suicide hotlines so they can talk to people. Dennis Cooper writes about cold and desperate nihilists. Palahniuk's characters are just as cold, just as desperate but they are also running cons solely for the sake of making friends, and that renders their desperation hilarious. Both Cooper and Palahniuk are funny, but Palahniuk is definitely trying to be funny. Cooper's humor is more dry and morbid.

Michael Hemmingson

Michael Hemmingson and Dennis Cooper write sexually explicit works without ever giving the impression that they like sex. Explicit sex scenes are either secondary to the crime thriller or torture porn. A typical Hemmingson protagonist meets a woman, fucks her and then spends the rest of the book unraveling. Both Hemmingson and Cooper also like to portray their characters eating shit, usually as part of sex. Hemmingson usually has at least one ATM scene. Cooper's characters outright shit in each other's mouths.

The irony is that Dennis Cooper was an extreme punk writer while Hemmingson wrote for Blue Moon. Most Hemmingson novels have lingerie wearing women on the cover. At least Dennis Cooper had the reputation to warn away horny teenage boys and Shade of Grey fans. Hemmingson books promised erotic thrills and delivered gross out scenes.

Either way, Dennis Cooper is still writing and blogging, so if you like any of the authors mentioned above, definitely check him out. His books may not become your favorite but you'll definitely remember them.

If you need a professional to edit your resume or manuscript

Here’s a pretty cool interview with Dennis Cooper.

Sorry. I still need money. Looks like I’ll get my SNAP back, but I also just had to pay $81 for my birth certificate (hopefully I’ll get it by the 19th even though expedited shipping stated that the earliest I’d get it was the 23), so if you could get a paid subscription or donate to my gofundme, that’d be awesome.

This is the first Dennis Cooper story I’ve read, but people seem to like The Sluts, so I guess start with that one?