Frisk by Dennis Cooper (Book Review)

I don't think I'm in a proper state to review this book, but then again, if I don't review it now; perhaps I won't ever in the future.

This was disturbing. Please, I'm putting stress on the word "disturbing". Petrifying and nightmarish. To compare; I've read " The Sluts" by the same author and it was just uhh, nerve wracking and painfully dusturbing dump(?), I mean, it was structured in the layout of a website so much of the nuance and critical dwellings were shut off, I feel like, in my opinion. But this? Holy hell. In Frisk, we are following a first person narrative. This sole structuring already opens up alot of gates for intricate and critical depths of dwellings and progressing. I really liked it but oh my, everytime I read a Cooper, it takes me weeks to recover. True halloween and spooky season read if you may.

So anyways; Frisk is a story about intense and extreme sexual desires and fantasies. Here, we follow our narrator from his early years as a teen to his mid 30s. A pornographic incident from when he was 13 strirred up his sexual sadistic desires and made him addictively erotic to such exposures. The brink of reality and illusion starts to fade as with each passing moments the extreme sadistic desires within our narrator keeps prominently getting stronger and stronger to a point where he daydreams all the time of killing others in utterly brutal ways and takes sexual self pleasure within such thoughts. I can't make you understand the intensity of his sexual urges and thoughts; I can't. You have to read to understand it properly; all I can say is; the book felt so real and eerie with such portrayals of fantasies and erotic desires within our narrator that it will always keep you on the toes and you thinking that "fuck, now he is actually going to do some of those vile things" ; but no.

Some spoilers here

He doesn’t, the chapter before the last chapter. The chapters which actually fucked me over and made me shiver, no joke, also while simultaneously making me genuinely gag to the point I felt like I was about to puke (multiple times). This chapter was devastating and bloody fucking messed up. So unsettling and petrifying, I'm inable to comprehend the intensity. Our narrator wrote a lengthy letter to his past lover describing everything in detail about what had happened since the last 2 years. Well, there were descriptions of his extreme sadistic sexual urges coming to life and he killing others, but in such a brutal and detailed mannered that felt so real. But plot twist, it wasn’t! All this was fakery.

This goes to show in what level his sexual urges dug within himself that he can craft such intense and utterly repulsive descriptions of his fantasies. To think of this is itself disturbing; the entirety of the novel displays sexual paraphilic disorder in such a distinct and striking lens that feels extremely sinking. I'm actually in awe with how masterfully the author crafted this utter vile atmosphere that radiates extreme eerieness and quite frankly, severely menacing and disturbing tone. The nonchalance of our narrator in describing every unusual and horrific details just added more complexity and horror to the story.

We can observe how the psychological descend and the growing intensity of his sexual sadistic desires hindered his life and his everyday living over the years and almost threw him in the brink of insanity. He didn’t kill anyone; yet. And the fact that he didn’t, shows even a bit of rationality and control he has over himself and his devouring urges that eats at him, which felt extremely real to the point of uncanniness. The dire and morbid consequences of obsession and such desires were greatly portrayed in the novel.

Realistic, nuanced and shivering. Frisk is a story that blends the reality and fictional portrayals of inhumane desires quite effortlessly which leaves us, the readers, in a void of monstrous fearful cycle. Even concluding this review, I feel like I haven’t said anything or have stated excessively. I seem to never be able to review Dennis Cooper's novels smoothly and/or properly. Genuinely liked the story for what it was but I'm glad I finished it and I'm free.