Billy Martin

Okay, this is not a happy or pleasant book. It's nasty in a myriad of ways. But it's not mean spirited. It feels more like a wounded animal lashing out with whatever energy it has left. It WILL fight you to it's inevitable death and you won't be able to comfort it.

If you want a very queer horror book and can stomach necrophilia and cannibalism, give it a read. You'll get it.

If you want a horror book but aren't willing to engage with queer themes find something else. That's what the book is show more about under the viscera. show less

When I was 13 I attempted to read this book, and now, I distinctly remember throwing it away in disgust after the first chapter.
WARNING, WARNING, WARNING
This novel truly is *disgusting*, vile, extremely disturbing, putrid. Feel brave? Come on in.
This would be equivalent to a scratch and sniff garbage pail kid sticker, labeled bloody fart.
But....SERIOUSLY this retched story sucks you right in, twists and turns you all around, has you writhing in gore, wincing through DETAILED rough gay show more sex, and squirming through the wretchedness of HIV and necrophilia.
When it’s through with YOU, it spits you right out to rot in your own stench in the relentless sun.
Absolutely terrifying. I had an actual night terror/ sleep paralysis from this book. I swore it was from having the book on my bed while I slept. I woke up and threw it off my bed.
I made it through, I have no plans to read it again, as it is not my favorite genre of horror (necrophilia) But I pay my respects to Brite, Brite sure knows how to TERRIFY me.
I do plan to revisit all older Brite titles now that I am an adult and not my rad 90s goth tween self, looking at the world through rose colored glasses. show less

Brite's writing and characters immediately sucked me in, and I absolutely loved the way art saturated the book's pages--drawing and music were both a constant source of atmosphere and brought home Brite's thematic intentions in a way that made the book resonate all the more. Tying together art, powerful relationships and friendships, and haunting violence, the book is a novel worth every horror-lover's mind, so far as I'm concerned. It escalates further and further until the climax of the show more book brings everything together in brilliant fashion, and I only wish there were more Brite books to be read. I'll come back to this one and recommend it over and over again, I'm sure. show less

Twenty-five years after my first reading, I decided to dive back into this one again. I remember little about the first read other than not being that impressed and not knowing what to think about all that "gay stuff" that I read.

All this time later, I like to think I'm more mature and understanding with the "gay stuff"...and no, I don't call it that anymore. And this time around, I was impressed with what I read.

For the sake of clarity, though I know Poppy Z. Brite, female at the time of show more the release of this novel, is now Billy Martin and prefers masculine tags, I'm going to stick with "she" for the review, as it does refer to Martin 25 years earlier.

To be clear, the novel is not without its faults, but, if what I've read is true and this story was written when Brite was just 19, then it's almost impossible for it not to have some awkward moments.

It is, of course, much less shocking that it would have been upon its release, but I still applaud Brite for taking it in some of the directions she did. I can't think of another novel that so perfectly captures the vacuous emptiness of the Eighties and the directionless morbidity of America's youth at the time. Tying in the music of Bowie, Bauhaus, and the Cure, and the poetry of Dylan Thomas, it helped set the mood and the tone for the story.

As others have mentioned, there's little plot, at times feeling like an Eighties vampiric version of Kerouac's On The Road. But if I had to compare it to any other works, I'd say it's a mashup of the New Orleans atmosphere of Anne Rice, without all the boring shit (which is most of Anne Rice), the carnal sensuality of Clive Barker, the casual violence of John Skipp and Craig Spector, and the confused, nihilistic youth of S.E. Hinton. That's quite a punch.

Could the story have been laid out a bit better? Yes. But overall, the word choice, the ideas, the examination of youth...all of it...gorgeous. The movie The Lost Boys only wishes it had this much depth and soul.

Well done. show less