The Devil You Know FROM THE PUBLISHER
In her third short story collection, Poppy Z. Brite finds fresh ways of exploring territory both familiar and strange. Here you'll meet the Devil and his giant cat last seen in the pages of Bulgakov, the gourmand coroner of New Orleans, the mad-genius chef who can't stand to have his cheese list criticized, and an assortment of Crescent City characters who also appear in Brite's novels The Value of X and Liquor. First and foremost, Poppy Z. Brite is a New Orleans writer. Dissatisfied with much of her early work about her home city, she has begun to explore a way of writing about it that bypasses the cliches and approaches the city's true heart: the hard-working, hard-partying cooks; the ways in which race, class, and sexual orientation do and don't matter; the love of bottom feeders, be they crustaceans or politicos; the million little juxtapositions of sacred and profane, bizarre and mundane, sublime and ridiculous that make up the everyday life of New Orleans. Some of these stories are set elsewhere, but Brite always returns home in the end. Brite's short fiction has been praised by a diverse assortment of writers: Harlan Ellison, Peter Straub, Neil Gaiman, Dan Simmons, Dennis Cooper, Andrei Codrescu. In this collection you'll find her strongest work yet.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Once both cult-worshipped and mainstream-reviled for her edgy investigations into supernatural and human horror, Brite (Lost Souls) is now more concerned with the more-or-less ordinary side of life and her home turf of New Orleans, as shown in her provocative third story collection. Four out of the 13 tales lie somewhere between the weird and the mundane and feature Brite's alter ego, Dr. Brite, the coroner of Orleans Parish, who loves to eat. The droll but dark "O Death, Where Is Thy Spatula?" involves raising the dead. In "Marisol," Dr. Brite literally tastes the consequences of revenge. Three tales, notably the bleakly nihilistic love story "Nothing of Him That Doth Fade," involve gay but otherwise run-of-the-mill couples who have some connection to the restaurant world. Abandoning past gothic trappings and using a cleaner, simpler style, Brite emerges as a writer of honesty and wit who may yet find favor with a broader literary readership. (Feb. 3) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.
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