My Loose Thread

Rating:
Summary: Slim
Review: Cooper's "My Loose Thread" is hardly a novel. A novella at best. More like a short story.

There's an interesting story buried under Cooper's deliberately stilted, bare-bones prose and stoned, soporific observations. The young boy in the story is dealing with being gay and the sexual affair he had with his brother. He's at the center of some odd, heartless kids, who aren't self-aware enough to know their own emotions. The problem is that Cooper, in his later work, seems to be attempting to "destroy" the novel. To reduce it so far as to be...well...I don't know what it becomes. The prose in this book goes well beyond being "lean": it's literally like the same few sentences repeated over and over again. Unlike in Cooper's early work, which was stunning, he doesn't really capture the voice of his narrator...

This book, however, is for Cooper fans only.

Rating:
Summary: About being unique
Review: Dennis Cooper is a writer who is creating his own niche in literature. He is eloquent while being brutal, comprehendable while writing about insanity, tender while describing the most perilous of situations, and a master at living inside the heads of troubled youths. MY LOOSE THREAD is more like an epic poem in dialogue than it is a novel. There is story here - grand Guignol story - but the madness of the narrative comes solely through the voices of the participants in this far from normal setting. And like an epic poem, this story begs to be read in one sitting. The dialogue is intense but the depth of meaning behind even short phrases requires deep concentration on the part of the reader.

Some people may be put off by the style or the subject of this book - Cooper climbs inside the psyches of young gay boys and tries to sort out the confusion and challenges of the real versus the fantasy. But get past whatever might disturb you about the story and you will be witness to a major talent. It will be invigorating to read a long novel by this gifted writer.

Rating:
Summary: Bring it on
Review: Dennis Cooper was born on January 10, 1953 in Pasadena, California. He grew up in Los Angeles. He was the director at Beyond Baroque. He lived in New York and Amsterdam for a few years. In 1984, Cooper moved to New York City. In 1987 he met his Dutch boyfriend who he soon followed back to Amsterdam. While in Amsterdam he finished writing his first novel, Closer, which was inspired by a postcard that featured an image of Mickey Mouse carved onto the back of a young boy. Around the time he wrote his second novel, Dennis began writing journalism for a number of newspapers and magazines.

Dennis then returned to Los Angeles around ten years ago. He is now known for his cycle of five novels that started with Closer, and continued with Frisk, Try, Guide, and Period. All the books were stylistically different and but had young people as their subject matter. He has published a number of books of poetry, most was later collected in The Dream Police. Dennis also published a book or short stories, Wrong, and a book of critical writings called All Ears.

In March 2000, Dennis' work was celebrated at NYU Fales Library with a panel of noted critics of contemporary culture including Professor Avital Ronell, Stephen Malkmus from the band "Pavement," Thurston Moore, guitarist with "Sonic Youth," and authors Bret Easton Ellis and Lynne Tillman, among others. The year 2000 was a threshold year since he was done with the cycle. Dennis was collaborating on other projects for a few years. Now he's finally published a new book, My Loose Thread. It is a very short book. It focuses on the thoughts of Larry, a teenager, and his friends. Larry has been paid to kill a fellow student and retrieve his notebook. There's also the strange relationship he has with his younger brother, Jim. My Loose Thread is a mystery and a challenge to read, especially in this age of teenage aggression and sexuality.