Dennis Cooper Critical Essay | Critical Review by John Ash

Critical Review by John Ash

SOURCE: Ash, John. “The City of Lost Angels.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (16 July 1989): 7.

In the following review, Ash acknowledges the pornographic and violent passages in Closer, but asserts that the work retains powerful and original writing.

Although I'm sure he'd cringe at the thought, Dennis Cooper's bleak and brilliant novel of gay teens in the affluent Los Angeles wastelands could be read as a cautionary tale concerning the advisability of stricter parental supervision. Parents, find out what your son is doing with his buddies in that locked bedroom! According to Cooper, sodomy and drug-abuse are the least of it, which is why—unlike Less Than Zero—Closer will never be made into a movie, even though there are terrific parts for Robert Downey Jr. and other bratpackers. But things are permitted in writing that could never be enacted for commercial cinema, and readers with a passing acquaintance with...
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