Those familiar with Cooper's graphic homoerotic oeuvre (Closer, Frisk) might find this collection—impressions of sadism and pornography that too often lose their aesthetic distance- -interesting commentary from a writer compared to Sade and Genet. Be prepared, though: This is adolescent sexual aimlessness and psychotic violence with a vengeance. In ``Dear Secret Dairy,'' a series of pseudo-autobiographical reflections, a typical Cooper character, one who loves to fantasize about graphic homosexual sex and its relationship to death, complains that AIDS has ``ruined death.'' That is, it has all become too real—with the result that Cooper's odd mix of sociological perspective and grotesque hormone-driven narrative is almost dated. Even so, ``A Herd'' is a scary portrait of a killer, Ray Sexton, who abducts aimless boys (``stoned, standing or rocking from heels to toes in front of various backdrops'') and kills them: ``Ray loved being close to an almost dead body, smelling its haplessness, utilizing it as a lover.'' In the title story, there's more sadism: ``When Mike saw a pretty face, he liked to mess it up, or give it drugs until it wore out by itself.'' Unfortunately, Cooper, whose earlier books chronicled (and projected) a haunting world—a working-class gay version of Less Than Zero—is self- conscious in these tuneups. His prose is often mannered, his characters automatons who, despite lots of sex, never achieve fictional life. ``Dinner,'' for instance, is a verbal homoerotic equivalent of Hustler magazine, despite its lyricism, whereas the long ``Safe,'' despite its craft and moving passages, is a gay version of Ann Beattie—long on regret, failed relationships and texture, short on drama. ``Dead boys were floating up in the headlines....'' Here, Cooper is part psychic, acutely probing the blank frightening faces behind the news, and part sicko, getting off on gratuitous, and often very graphic, sex.
Pub Date: March 16, 1992
ISBN: 0-8021-1401-6
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1992
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
