The Marbled Swarm : A Novel
Author(s): Dennis Cooper
From literary cult hero Dennis Cooper comes his most haunting work to date.
“An American master…. Cooper is the most important transgressive literary artist since Burroughs.” --Salon
In secret passageways, hidden rooms, and the troubled mind of our narrator, a mystery perpetually takes shape—and the most compelling clue to its final nature is “the marbled swarm” itself, a complex amalgam of language passed down from father to son.
Cooper ensnares the reader in a world of appearances, where the trappings of high art, old money, and haute cuisine obscure an unspeakable system of coercion and surrender. And as the narrator stalks an elusive truth, traveling from the French countryside to Paris and back again, the reader will be seduced by a voice only Dennis Cooper could create.
Review(s):
“A mesmerizing, labyrinthine tour through an especially hellish father-son relationship.”
“Provocative...Cooper’s interest in the darkest corners of the human experience...has not dimmed with age. The novel’s contradictory narratives intentionally echo the secret passageways in which the narrator’s predatory activities take place, creating a baroque, voyeuristic effect.
“The Marbled Swarm is concerned as much with language as it is with relationships and power….His fantastical story of everyday cannibalism is told in such finely chiseled yet disorienting prose that you suspect you’re being led into a maze.”
“Cooper’s status as an underground renegade of experimental fiction doesn’t reduce his talent or the brilliance of his dark views. He is a passionately humane writer. We need his voice now more than ever.”
“… lies somewhere in between Lolita and Dracula, mixing the gothic terror and disturbing subject of both, within a contemporary bi-sexual, skinny jeaned, iPhone-totting environment, and a much further push of the envelope. … a novel that must be read.”
“In The Marbled Swarm, Cooper has coupled a clever intellectual romp with stomach-turning brutality and quite a bit of humor.”
“…deftly executed plot surgery…”
“The most personal, and honest [of Cooper’s] daring, perplexing books.”
“Readers unfamiliar with transgressive fiction would do well to brace themselves for what will either be the shock of the unrelentingly different or, perhaps, the shock of recognizing writing that speaks to their souls.”
“… language every bit as thrilling, rapt, and brain-waking as we could want from one of our living legends…”
ISBN: 9780061715631