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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780440217985
ISBN number: 0440217989
Label: Dell
Manufacturer: Dell
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 256
Printing Date: December 01, 1995
Publishing house: Dell
Release Date: December 01, 1995
Sale Popularity Level: 183837
Studio: Dell
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
A collection of erotic horror stories follows the adventures of solace-seeking lonelyhearts on a North Carolina highway, behind a dusty Georgia carny show, in a Baton Rouge mausoleum, and an alley in Calcutta. Reprint.
Amazon.com Review:
The name of Poppy Z. Brite is well known to most horror fans. What some do not know, though, is that Brite hit the ground running as a fiction writer, and some of her best work so far is right here in this collection of a dozen tales (originally published as Swamp Foetus) she wrote between ages 18 and 24. The exigencies of long plot development and evolving characters that sometimes bog her down in the novels are absent from the short story form, where Brite's extraordinary talent for compressed, redolent imagery combines with her keen sense of narrative structure to create perfect little objets d'art. Stories like 'His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood,' 'Calcutta, Lord of Nerves,' and my favorite, 'The Sixth Sentinel,' are too exquisite to be missed.
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Rated by buyers 
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The stories in this book still haunt me and I've read them so many times. Ms Brite's style of writing is the kind that crawls under your skin and stays there.
My favorite was "Optional Music for Voice and Piano" but it's hard to name just one because they're all so moving. The best part about this collection is that the scares aren't as elementary as other traditionally frightening literature. Most scary stories are a sword; they'll hack you up but you'll see them coming.
This group is more of a razor blade; You don't know how deep you've been cut until the blood starts to fall.
Rated by buyers -
Every once in a while you stumble across an artist who is in the wrong time... Poppy is one of those authors, and artist who seems as if she was born too late to be happy. From reading her stories you can envision her walking with the likes of Lovecraft and Poe. I assume they would discuss language, the beauty of the written word and the terrors of their hearts. Brite has a style that harkens back to the 1800's when flowing language and beauty could be found in even the darkest of tales. This collection of short stories is dark, gothic, beautiful, flowing, engaging and sad. Though she is labeled as horror, I wouldn't quite put her in that category, at least in this book. True there are vampires, murderers, and the undead... but they are never frightening... Brite looks at them all as a beautiful and necessary addition to a dark and morose world.
Although her writing is beautiful, and her stories thrilling to read, this book will not be for everyone. Her characters are sexually ambiguous, often leaning closer to the homosexual side, and although she never becomes overly graphic, I don't know that I would advise my husband read this. Also her characters tend to be very thin, fine boned almost androgynous males with questionable morals, and a penchant for eye shadow and lace. The closest mainstream author I can think of to compare her with would be Anne Rice with a darker view of the world.
Personally, I really enjoyed reading these stories, I loved her use of language, her sense of atmosphere and the brooding nature of her characters. The theme that seems to run through the book is one of both love and death, though the love is darker and more horrifying and the death is beautiful and erotic. If you read this book be sure to read the introduction by Dan Simmons, one of my favorite authors. It is both hysterically funny, and also does a good job of setting your mind in the right mood to proceed into the stories.
Rated by buyers 
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For fans of Poppy Z. Brite's early works in gothic horror, this collection of short stories is a killer starting point. As Dan Simmons describes in his tongue-in-cheek intro here, Brite excels in creating deadly scenes through a very "sensual" writing style - that is, she creates moods by deftly describing sights, sounds, and smells with a furiously exotic and descriptive use of language. Like the best of horror, Brite's stories are not necessarily scary in a slasher sort of way, but instill a sense of creeping dread that stays with you long after your reading experience is over. Even better, most of the stories in this volume were written by Brite at quite a young age, giving the world a preview of an emerging talent that has now delivered the goods for close to two decades. These stories show Brite laying waste to overused horror archetypes and taking them in surprising new directions, including a creepy update of the weird twins device in "Angels," a new look at the desires of ghosts in "The Sixth Sentinel," and a very disturbing take on zombies in "Calcutta, Lord of Nerves" which repositions the undead as society's disadvantaged rejects and outcasts. At a young age, Brite also displayed raw talent in the art of character development, the most notable example here being "Optional Music for Voice and Piano," a tale of a singer with a talent that becomes bigger than himself, with tragic results. Poppy Z. Brite has had an important influence on modern horror writing, and instead of reading imitations, you should get it from the source. [~doomsdayer520~]
Rated by buyers -
This collection of stories containing Brite's earliest published short fiction showcases her considerable talent as a storyteller and prose stylist. Indeed, the prose style Poppy employs in many of these stories is at times downright poetic. Check out how she describes a person being killed with a shotgun: "Papa's deer shot caught him across the chest and belly, a hundred tiny grey eyes weeping blue tears." It's passages like that which make me wonder if Poppy has ever written (and published) any poetry since her prose style at times has the sensibility of a poet. Poppy is very skillful in creating a mood with her early rich prose style that largely manages not to be overly self-conscious or intrusive. Indeed, one of the aspects of Poppy's writing style that I really admire is her ability to provide rich description to the reader that allows one to feel like one is actually present during the scenes in her stories. In the really good story "Missing" Poppy makes one feel like they know how it is to walk the streets of New Orleans and experience it's sights, smells, and sounds. Also, just as the fiction of Stephen King and H. P. Lovecraft turned New England into a creepy landscape, so too has Poppy made the already haunted landscape of the South even creepier through these stories.
My favorite story is "The Sixth Sentinel" which successfully combines ghost story, pirate lore, the setting of old New Orleans, and (I'm guessing) Poppy's own experience as a stripper. Another favorite "His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood" is actually a retelling of H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Hound", which I didn't realize when I very first read it since I never read the original. I recently read "The Hound" off the internet and I was astonished that it wasn't included in "The Best of H.P. Lovecraft." Poppy was able to take the basic storyline of Lovecraft's story and successfully make it her own without sacrificing any of the creepiness or quality of the original. I also really liked "Calcutta, Lord of Nerves". I recently saw a National Geographic program about a certain religious sect (name?) in India. Many of rituals practiced by these men involve dealing with and handling many items that people consider to be unclean, including dead bodies. Anyway, this story reminded me of a lot of the topics and images I saw in that program. I also liked "Angels" and "Xenophobia". It's interesting to note that many themes that seem to fascinate Poppy are repeated in many of these stories like recurrent motifs: music and musicians, alcohol and substance abuse, food, and twins or twin-like couples.
I read "Wormwood" and "Liquor" (which is her most recent novel and representative of her new realistic direction) at the same time and the contrast and similarities between her earliest and latest fiction is really interesting. You can arguably see the beginnings of the Poppy's more realistic style in the stories "The Elder", "How to Get Ahead in New York", and "The Ash of Memory, Dust of Desire". In fact, one criticism I have of stories such as "NY" and "Ash" is that they probably would have been more successful if Poppy would have kept them totally realistic. When the horror element enters into these stories, it almost seems like an intrusion or an afterthought rather than an integral part of the story. It's as though the young Poppy had the mindset of since she was a horror writer, she had to insert a horror element into all of her stories no matter what. I think if Poppy would have been writing "Ash" or "NY" today, they wouldn't have had a horror element in them, but I could be wrong. "The Elder", on the other hand, consistently retains a realistic tone throughout and hence is superior to "Ash" or "NY".
If you like the short stories of Lovecraft, Poe, or Stephen King, chances are you will also like many of the interesting stories in "Wormwood". Good job Poppy! Four and a half stars.
Rated by buyers -
Poppy Z. Brite has officially become a favorite author of mine. Her books are dark, disturbing and literary. And the fact that her stories have gothic elements makes them all the more appealing. Having read Are You Loathsome Tonight?, I couldn't wait to pick up another one of her books. Wormwood caught my attention the moment I lay my eyes on it. I am so glad I gave it a whirl. The stories here are dark, horrifying and full of beautiful prose (at least that's my take on them). Brite has incredible talent. My favorite stories are "Calcutta, Lord of Nerves," "Xenophobia," "How to Get Ahead in New York," "The Elder," "His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood," and "The Sixth Sentinel." I devoured these stories from beginning to end. The stories are sheer horror. I recommend this anthology to those who like to read about things that go bump in the night with a literary twist.
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