Rebecca's Reviews > Exquisite Corpse

“It was like discovering that your innermost fires and terrors, the things you believed no one else could fathom, were in fact the basis of a recognized philosophy. Some part of you felt intimately invaded, threatened; some other part fell to its knees and sobbed in gratitude that it was no longer alone.”

In 1990s New Orleans, recently escaped British serial killer Andrew Compton joins forces with Jay Byrne, an American playboy who has pushed his ‘art’ to a new level. A level where both men are able to realise their most profane and deplorable fantasies. They set their sights on what they deem to be the perfect victim, a young Vietnamese-American runaway named Tran.

Exquisite Corpse is very obviously influenced by Jeffrey Dahmer and his highly disturbing crimes. Written and set in the early 90s you can also expect homophobia and HIV/Aids phobia. I’ve seen quite a few negative reviews trashing the author for including these ‘facts’ but, when this book was written, Jeffrey Dahmer had only recently been captured and the despicable attitudes towards gay people and HIV/AIDS was out of control during this time. I think sometimes people pick up a book in 2023 and forget that it was written at a different time.

With that off my chest, you can expect extreme gore, cannibalism, murder, necrophilia, rape, and a LOT of graphic sex and torture. It goes without saying this one isn't for the light of heart, or for the squeamish.

“Peter Straub once said of the author ‘the only writer who could write a guidebook to hell that would make me want to go there’”

This is a novel that, despite having two sadistic killers as its main characters, you want to learn more about them. Our main initial focus is Andrew and then Jay. Throughout the novel, we want to know WHY these men are like this, and why they feel that love can only be achieved when the person is dead. We fear for Tran who, though unbeknownst to his own actions, is involved with Jay, and we learn how much Tran's ex-lover cares about him. There is sad, beautiful love in this story, there is also sadistic and evil love.

The writing is incredible. I don't think I've ever seen such beautiful descriptions of graphic violence, of sexual terror, of human dissection, of blood and gore, the prose is a mixture of poetry and clinical facts. At one point when a dead man is cut open the horror of his disease riddled innards and entrails is a banquet of succulent and devastating power to the killers who performed the act.

There were times this book made me feel sick. There were more than a few instances where I cringed, but l am a fan of extreme horror. I want to be repulsed and horrified and for horror to push me to my limit!

I am fascinated with the appalling beauty of this book. Unabashed violence and carnal destruction.

Exquisite Corpse is a Feast of Death.

I Highly Recommend to lovers of extreme horror.

“There was a chill in the air, to be sure, a damp cool vapour drifting round corners and rising from drains. But I had just come from London, where November vapours were like ill-intentioned hands sliding beneath your collar to encircle your coat-chafed, chicken-skinned throat, where November winds cut more deeply than my stolen scalpel ever did.”