PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Reading is such a beautiful thing as it can elicit a wide range of emotions that will have the reader pondering long after the pages end. While anyone can write a book, it takes an author with a keen eye to transform a simple story into one that can all at once be transgressive, political, frustrating, and utterly revolting. Billy Martin (formerly known as Poppy Z. Brite)’s Exquisite Corpse is an extreme horror novel about cannibalism and the pursuit of love in life…and death.
Published in 1996, Exquisite Corpse follows Andrew Compton, a convicted serial killer, as he escapes custody by faking his death and winds up across the pond in New Orleans. Eventually, he meets Jay Byrne, a cannibal aristocrat who is just as sick and twisted as he is. Soon, they raise hell and begin to paint the town red as they feed off of each other’s sickness and inner demons. Eventually, they set their sights on Tran, a homeless teenager cruelly living in the streets after his parents kicked him out for being gay. On the other side of town, Lucas Ransom runs a pirate radio station where he voices his anger at the world as he struggles to come to terms with his recent HIV diagnosis. Luckily for some and unfortunately for others, all their paths will cross.
Martin’s writing style is impressive because it evokes every sense of one’s being. The reader can feel the swampiness of the air emanating from the French Quarters, smell the bleach lingering after Jay’s cleansing spree, and hear the silence as Andrew lies dormant in his body bag. But worst of all, they can see and taste the pure viscera that is left behind as the killers indulge every impulse of their darkest fantasies. As the leads, Jay & Andrew are written with a complexity that causes one to question if there is such a thing as humanity.
“I was friend of the dead, lover of the dead.”
A common issue that plagues extreme horror is that the author tends to get overexcited when describing the violence and gore in their story. Due to this being a highlight for many readers, it’s only fair that they want to write the flashiest of scenes and feature the harshest and squishiest words they can use. With Exquisite Corpse, Martin has chosen to write these scenes more nuanced and poetic. Make no mistake, these scenes are disturbing and upsetting to read. While words on a page can’t hurt, there were multiple times when I had to put down the book to decompress and calm my nerves before I dared to continue to read.
While there is a lot to praise, there are some glaring flaws. While not necessarily a slow start, the book does take a while to get going. We follow Andrew as he is in prison and learns to stagger his breathing in order to fake his death. The means of which he goes through to achieve freedom are so beyond lunacy and improbability that it does leave the reader to question if the rest of the book will operate with other instances of completely implausible happenstances. Thankfully, this is only the case for the opening as the rest of the story stays grounded. Unfortunately, there is a more serious concern that does have to be considered when reading Exquisite Corpse. Parts of the story and characters appear to be “inspired” by the infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. This can cause the story to be viewed as an exploitation of a serious and troubling crime. However, it can also be seen as an attempt to humanize and give credence to the victims affected at a time when the media trivialized their suffering.
Despite being nearly 30 years old, Exquisite Corpse is both a product of its time and relevant to today’s audience. An important aspect that helps it stand out is that it is an unflinchingly poetic horror story that forces the reader to experience the fear of being a gay man living through the AIDS epidemic. This is an unapologetically queer erotic splatter novel.
While it may not be appropriate for the more casual reader, Exquisite Corpse is an excellent horror novel that’s a must-read for those who can handle its more extreme and taboo subject matter. Billy Martin dares to ask the reader, “What’s Eating You?”
