Cooper, Dennis. Closer. New York: Grove, 1989.

I ordered my copy of this novel—those are naked men on its cover—online and the back cover came coated in a tacky, pasty grey-white goo. Why can't people take better care of things? I mean pay attention, right?

Closer is Dennis Cooper's first novel in a pentology of novels about George Miles, who in this novel is the beloved figure for half a dozen high school boys, all gay and all pretty much cool with it. George gets involved with a middle-aged French man named Philippe, and through that connection travels down a dark road of dangerous, filthy sex that almost gets him killed in the basement of some suburban home.

In line with the literary fads that I think produced these stories (in many ways the novel is a bunch of separate linked narratives), the writing is always very stripped down and gritty. My favorite story—which is to say the only one I actually liked—was told from the point of view of Alex, who is in love with a boy who is in love with George, and who wants to be a filmmaker. Perhaps its this ambition, and this once-removed relationship to the novel's central figure, that creates in him a cool critical stance I found refreshing. Of especial interest is a scene where Alex first sleeps with another boy, this one somewhat older, and can only get involved in the sex by narrating what's going on in the cold, absurdist voice of a pornographic novel.

And Alex is also responsible for this line, the novel's best: "Oh, that was simple, like fishing probably is" (84). Otherwise I can't really recommend anyone read the book, despite the reputation Cooper's gained.