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Dennis Cooper

Closer: A Novel (Cooper, Dennis) Paperback – January 18, 1994

by Dennis Cooper (Author)

62 ratings

Book 1 of 5: George Miles Cycle

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Physically beautiful and strangely passive, George Miles attracts his fellow students with a mysterious promise, like a wallet lying on the street. One after another, his teenage friends rifle through George, ransacking him for love or anything else they could trust in the mindlessness of middle America. What they find is a vision of nightmare intensity, in a novel that assaults the senses as it engages the mind.

Closer follows the links of desire and value that drag George into the arms of men like John, an artist who drains his portraits of humanity in order to find what lies beneath; Alex, fascinated by splatter films and pornography; and Steve, an underground entrepreneur who turns his parents’ garage into a nightclub. These and others pass George from hand to hand, hoping to feel even one emotion clear and uncorrupted by society, but George remains a blurry ghost until he is picked up by two men in their forties. Tom and Philippe think they can find reality in the sharp outlines of bones and the bright red of blood; obsessed with the beauty of death, they find in George the perfect object for their passion.

In brutally frank prose that exposes euphemism, cliché, and evasion, Dennis Cooper stares unflinchingly at the horror of a society without values, and his vision makes its enormity all too real. It is a world in which pain is an undeniable reality, the inevitable companion of truth, and a test of our commitment to life. Dennis Cooper explores the limits of experience, and while he sharpens our understanding of the life around us, he leaves no escape from what he finds.

Print length

144 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Grove Press
Publication date

January 18, 1994
Dimensions

5.75 x 0.5 x 8.25 inches
ISBN-10

080213212X
ISBN-13

978-0802132123
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grove Press; Reprint edition (January 18, 1994)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 144 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 080213212X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802132123
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 0.5 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #497,978 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #696 in LGBTQ+ Literary Fiction (Books)
- #9,807 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #32,199 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
62 ratings

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Dennis Cooper

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Customer reviews

5 star		50%
4 star		23%
3 star		8%
2 star		10%
1 star		9%

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Top reviews from the United States

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DBStL

it's rare that i put aside a book

Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2021

Verified Purchase

The story was about a high school student whose ego is inflated by a teacher and some critics saying his deconstructed drawings were impressive. He found a lonely boy as a model that he could use and abuse. I just couldn't see this story going anywhere worthwhile and removed it from my Kindle. Too many good goods to read.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Steven Carrier

Dennis Cooper, a great American Author

Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2020

Verified Purchase

Dennis Cooper is an incredible writer who dares to go places very few other authors refuse to touch. His books are shocking, grotesque but also masterfully structured, beautifully written and seem even more vital than ever in 2020. If you can stomach the extreme depictions of sexual violence you’ll find an incredible and indelible voice you’ll never forget.

2 people found this helpful

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tony

Absolute trash. Do not see how anyone likes this “author”

Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2022

Verified Purchase

Will not waste anymore money on this so called author. Made two attempts and both are trash. Could not connect with any character and stories are very shallow and one dimensional. Both are in the trash headed for landfill. Not even worth recycling.

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2020

Verified Purchase

It’s hard to keep the players straight (no pun intended) among this nihilistic cabal of 17-year-old queer guys. Lots of sex, much of it S&M, with no insight about why other than ennui.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Kevin F. Tasker

Dirty, lyrical, exciting

Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2010

Verified Purchase

Few contemporary authors possess such zeal in examining the lives of tortured gay teenagers. Cooper is a lustful writer, a stylist virtuoso whose stories at once sicken and delight. Closer details a youthful gay boy named George Miles who is used so thoroughly by those lecherous freaks he comes across, he almost ceases to be a human being. This includes prolonged descriptions of scatophelia and worse...much much worse. Presented in clipped, adjective-light sentences, Cooper has written a vile book that makes up for its lack of heart/general human emotion, with what seems to be a never-ending stream of human misery, self-desctruction, calloused blundering, evil, evil characters. It is not what you might call family-friendly. Really this is some of the sickest "literature" available (though not as protracted as Ellis' American Psycho) though it doesn't come off as trying to shock just for shock's sake (ala Palahniuk)...most of the time. Sometimes George is forced to endure such heinous things as anal basement surgery (a man wants to saw him apart to get off...) that we flinch and sort of pull away, wondering to ourselves if "stuff like this really happens in our real world." Now as I write this I listen to birds chirping outside and the sun is bright and hot, alluring. This book is the anthesis of a sunny day. It is a catastrophic dungeon of a read, a hobbled, pitch-black, brutal little ditty (clocking in at almost novella length) that shows, from many points of view, the way a young mind can be destroyed. It is not a book for teenagers, or those with weak stomaches. Similar to the Marquis de Sade, whom I'm told Cooper drew much of his influence, it might leave you loathing humanity as a whole. At the same time, however, it is really difficult to put down (if you enjoy writers I've mentioned). You might hate yourself for liking it, but there is a kind of weight to it in the absence of hope and light. There is a kind of disparity that is difficult to comprehend, but at the same time enlightens. Like you feel after falling down a long stairwell. The blur at the bottom, in the grime, every muscle contracting, flushing sweat, the breath you draw in feels electrified. That feeling is Dennis Cooper. A mythical breath of human degradation, something near art but not quite. More like a deleriously-entertaining horror show you feel sort of guilty recommending to people.

12 people found this helpful

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Thrown to the Wolves

Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2008

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I read the book twice before I wrote this review (which was quick to do since the novel is only 130 pages long), once to read the content, and again to see Cooper's vision. While I cannot personally identify with his facination and association with love/sex/violence/death, I cannot deny that this book is powerful. George Miles is incredibly sympathetic and complex despite lacking clarity, while those around him are so incredibly depraved and self-indulgent (to the point that they BS themselves). If you can read past the "rebellious" content, then it's for you.

7 people found this helpful

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William "Liam" Purcell

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2014

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Fast and efficient. Item as described.

2 people found this helpful

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AR

interesting in a sick wierd kind of way

Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2000

I intially got into Cooper by mistaking his work for another writer, but found myself happily surprised after reading some short stories he had written.
This book is pretty much standard for Cooper, not to say it is bad. It is always fascinating to read about the sorts of things people think about but never admit to. Or the things which ahppen in life no one wants to talk about. Specifically very dirty sex and murder. And this book will cover all of that.
It's rather hard to explain the plot since I don't think there is one in any normal sense. Dennis Cooper ust isn't that kind of writer. Instead, we have vignettes all orbiting around one character, George Miles, a teenager sort of confused by and removed from the world. This quality he has allows numerous tortures to be enacted upon him and he takes it, not really seeming to feel any deeper sort of pleasure. A character it is easy to project upon by the other characters.
It's been a few months since I've read this, but it still seems fresh in my head. This is the sort of stuff which will seriously affect you, but some will find it too shocking and repulsive for their taste.

21 people found this helpful

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