Dennis Cooper

Chris is a young porn star who wants to experience death at someone else's hand; Mason has lurid fantasies about members of British pop bands; Sniffles is a teenage runaway whose need for love outweighs his attachment to life. Courtesy of a frankly manipulative author/narrator named Dennis, these characters move through a subterranean Los Angeles where hallucination and reality, sex and suicide, love and indifference run together in terrifying ways. Guide,...

In "Hummingbird Moonshine," a frustrated hunt for authentic religion in botanicas and science books culminates in a spiritual connection made with a hummingbird. In "Oceanic," the narrator resolves to marry a manatee after a drunken pre-party for her best friend's wedding. In "Tiles," four vignettes about bloody accidents in tiled bathrooms intermingle with scenes from the author's favorite scary movies. In Trinie Dalton's tweaked vision of reality,...