Poppy Z Brite – Exquisite Corpse

I’ve said elsewhere how much I liked Poppy Z Brite’s earlier works. They combined dark, fantastical plots, with Vampires, erotica and New Orleans.

Some of this has been retained in Exquisite Corpse. Well the fantastic plots and New Orleans. The erotica has been replaced by sex and the Vampires by serial killers. The author has also chucked in a liberal dashing of quite explicit guts and gore.

The story follows the events leading up to the meeting of two serial killers, describing the lives they ruin along the way, the sex they engage in and the brutal deaths of the unfortunates they decide to kill

I’m not much of a prude and I can take the odd bit of horror, but I found some of this novel a little over the top – not that I care much, it’s too some people’s taste after all (that’s a reference to the cannibal scenes in this novel for those who haven’t read it).
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It’s just that Brite’s earlier novels were really well thought out, and since the hinge of this particular plot is so improbable (even more improbable than Vampires) I found it almost painful to read.

If you’re a Brite fan, you’ve probably read this, I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to someone who’d never read her works as it might put you off the far more excellent “Drawing Blood” and “Lost Souls”.