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Summary: A perfect first taste
Review: This book was my first exposure to Poppy Z. Brite, and I read it all in one sitting. Sure, some of the stories far outshine some others, but this is almost always the case in a collection such as this. What is so great about this format is you can sample a writer or a genre without a huge investment of money or time. I have gone on to read The Lazarus Heart and her Vampire Erotica Collection, Love in Vein. Poppy's material packs enough punch for the harder horror readers, but she also paints enough atmosphere for the literary side of us. Particularly good in this collection is His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood. But be warned, this collection is not for the faint of heart or stomach.
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Summary: intriguing
Review: this book was very unusual yet it was very there. once you start this book you can not put it down.
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Summary: Butthead: Uh, he, he, he-Poppy said 'wood'!
Review: 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 black eyes weeping red 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 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.
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Summary: this is a great book!
Review: this was the first book by poppy z. brite i ever got my hands on, and i loved it.....i am now an addict!
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Summary: His mouth will taste of wormwood... wow
Review: What a book. I stumbled across it accidentally, in its original hard cover form entitled Swamp Foetus. Once I read a few pages of the title story, I was hooked and I simply had to finish. I read the rest of the book in one sitting. The stories are dark and haunting, and sometimes the images are disturbingly graphic and morbid, with ample helpings of grave robbing, rotting flesh, exhumed corpses, etc. Especially good is the title story, about two androgynous goth beauties obsessed with death and always in search of the ultimate thrill. If you have a taste for the macabre and necro-erotic, this collection of stories is for you. The images and characters will stay with you long after you cease reading it.
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Summary: this is the best short stories i have read
Review: What would happen if you took a goth, a type writer, andcreativity beyond compare and turned it into a collection of shortstories? Poppy Z. Brite's Wormwood is the definite answer. She explores a grim and vast horizone that ranges from graveyards off of the Mississippi to the temples of the goddess Kali in Calcutta,India. There is not a dull moment in a Poppy Z. Brite book. She reaches in you and pulls out your worst nightmares and most erotic dreams. Her stories are shocking,entertaining, and supremely written. If there is such a thing as the perfect collection of short stories, this is definetely it.
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Summary: PRETENTIOUS, PRETENTIOUS, PRETENTIOUS
Review: While Ms. Brite is obviously quite gifted, I really cannot understand how most of these stories ever managed to get published. The prose is so purple and filled with pseudo-meaningful pretention that I found myself laughing out loud much of the time. That the majority of these stories weren't meant as parody is quite amazing to me. Poppy: Lose the faux-hip nihilist pose and the horrid Anne Rice-wannabe style and you might create something worth reading. Leave the black mascara and bogus "angst" to dullard alt-rock bands like The Cure. Please. My abs can't take any more from all the laughing.
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Summary: Wormwood: An Author's Growth
Review: Wormwood is a collection of short stories that Poppy Z. Brite wrote mainly in the late 80's and early 90's. Many fans of Poppy consider her short stories to be better than her novel, but I can't agree. In this medium you feel like you've only had an appetizer of her amazing talent, left with only a morsel of an idea.I enjoyed about half of this collection, including "His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood," "Xenophobia," "Calcutta: Lord of Nerves," and "How to Get Ahead in New York." Fans of her first novel, "Lost Souls" will be pleased to learn that two of the stories feature Steve and Ghost. I recommend this book to Poppy fans, but if this is your introduction, I would start with her novels. Wormwood is a fascinating timeline of one of the best authors around expanding her talent, and exploring the dark worlds that she creates. Good work, all in all.
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Summary: not as good as her books, but definantly worth the read
Review: Wormwood was a creative collection of Brite's short stories ripe with gore and the heady smell and sweat of the Louisiana bayous. I loved it, but I must admit I did not enjoy it as much as her books. Maybe I just felt abandoned because they were so short and left me wanting more. I loved that there was a story with Steve and Ghost from Lost Souls as the main characters. My faveorite story was The Sixth Sentinnel. Only Brite can create a story about a stripper and a ghost that loves her and make it believable. Some of the stories made me laugh, some made me want to cry, some disturbed me, but as always with Brite, I did not leave the book the same as I was when I found it.
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Summary: Gothic Horror At Its Best
Review: Wormwood, Brite's collection of gothic short stories, serves as a reminder that Brite is one of the most original, most powerful, most interesting voice in modern horror fiction. All of her stories are enthralling and intriguing. Even in her short fiction, her characters are three-dimensional and fully formed. And her poetic prose is always affecting. This collection of 12 stories is just wonderful to sift through. And of course, some of the stories are better than the rest. My two favourites, Angels and How To Get Ahead In New York, brings back the charcters Steve and Ghost, the two protagonist of Brite's first novel, Lost Souls. Ghost is Brite's most interesting character; I would gladly live through many more adventures with him. It was a real pleasure to meet him again, even under the form of short ficiton (though I have to admit that I do crave another novel with Ghost as the main protagonist). The story Optional Music for Voice and Piano is probably the best story in the book. It tells the story of a singer who's voice has the power to affect others in the most nefarious ways. And the stories The Ash Of Memeory, The Dust of Desire and The Elder are also worth more than one reading. It is obvious that Brite is highly inspired by music in all of its forms and shapes. All of her stories are about the power and the beauty of music. But her prose also reads like music; it is always poetic, always beautiful, always telling and very musical.
Miss Brite deserves to become a major voice in horror fiction. This collection of short stories just serves to prove that she is one of horror's best kept secret, a secret which is more than ready to erupt into something greater.
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