BOOK OF THE MONTH - JULY
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite
Orion £16.99 (0 75280 206 2)
If you want real horror - this is it! The story is one of a meeting of minds of almost unimaginable depravity. Two serial killers, one from London, the other from New Orleans meet and recognise kindred souls. Their brief encounter inevitably turns to blood and savagery as they lure a young man to his death and play out their horrendous love affair with flesh and death.
The power of Exquisite Corpse is in the telling of the tale through the minds of these men. From the sheer force of Poppy Z. Brite’s writing emerges a disturbing skill that can make such a tale of horror palatable. But Exquisite Corpse isn’t a mere case of morbid fascination with minds obsessed with death and killing. Scenes of horror are fraught with tenderness, sadness and compassion, some are the most disturbing that I’ve come across.
And this, after all, is the book’s great strength. If you ask for horror, horror is what you get. Not a make-believe tale where you’re deliciously scared but safe in the knowledge that these are mere horrors of the imagination, but a glimpse into the disordered minds of (almost) real men. You may ask yourself whether tales of violence, mutilation and murder are more or less disturbing by being made acceptable to the reader. Exquisite Corpse makes no such attempt. Nothing is spared - just when you think it couldn’t get worse, it does!
How could horrors like this produce such a fascinating book? Read it and see. But Exquisite Corpse is certainly not for those of a nervous disposition! (EAL)
