Wormwood: A Collection of Short Stories
by Poppy Z. Brite
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Book Summary Information
Author: Poppy Z. BriteEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Published: 1995-12-01
ISBN: 0440217989
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Dell
Book Reviews of Wormwood: A Collection of Short Stories
Book Review: So Poppy, Poe, and Lovecraft walk into a bar...
Summary: 4 Stars
Every once in a while you stumble across an artist who is in the wrong time... Poppy is one of those authors, and artist who seems as if she was born too late to be happy. From reading her stories you can envision her walking with the likes of Lovecraft and Poe. I assume they would discuss language, the beauty of the written word and the terrors of their hearts. Brite has a style that harkens back to the 1800's when flowing language and beauty could be found in even the darkest of tales. This collection of short stories is dark, gothic, beautiful, flowing, engaging and sad. Though she is labeled as horror, I wouldn't quite put her in that category, at least in this book. True there are vampires, murderers, and the undead... but they are never frightening... Brite looks at them all as a beautiful and necessary addition to a dark and morose world.
Although her writing is beautiful, and her stories thrilling to read, this book will not be for everyone. Her characters are sexually ambiguous, often leaning closer to the homosexual side, and although she never becomes overly graphic, I don't know that I would advise my husband read this. Also her characters tend to be very thin, fine boned almost androgynous males with questionable morals, and a penchant for eye shadow and lace. The closest mainstream author I can think of to compare her with would be Anne Rice with a darker view of the world.
Personally, I really enjoyed reading these stories, I loved her use of language, her sense of atmosphere and the brooding nature of her characters. The theme that seems to run through the book is one of both love and death, though the love is darker and more horrifying and the death is beautiful and erotic. If you read this book be sure to read the introduction by Dan Simmons, one of my favorite authors. It is both hysterically funny, and also does a good job of setting your mind in the right mood to proceed into the stories.
Summary of Wormwood: A Collection of Short Stories
The name of Poppy Z. Brite is well known to most horror fans. What some do not know, though, is that Brite hit the ground running as a fiction writer, and some of her best work so far is right here in this collection of a dozen tales (originally published as Swamp Foetus) she wrote between ages 18 and 24. The exigencies of long plot development and evolving characters that sometimes bog her down in the novels are absent from the short story form, where Brite's extraordinary talent for compressed, redolent imagery combines with her keen sense of narrative structure to create perfect little objets d'art. Stories like "His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood," "Calcutta, Lord of Nerves," and my favorite, "The Sixth Sentinel," are too exquisite to be missed.Horror Books
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