High Life (Little House on the Bowery)

Rating:
Summary: Brutally brilliant.
Review: Add Stokoe's name to the few writers who can deliver pure evil. "High Life" is an intensely violent affair which includes every possible perversion -- stuff you might have had a nightmare about and stuff too insane for any normal person to have thoughts about. "High Life" isn't the novel "Cows" was -- it exists much more to simply gross you out. The writing is also occasionally clunky, the plotting indifferent, and the characters have no depth. I don't know if Stokoe is willing to admit this or not, but clearly this book was nothing but a "put it all on the table and freak people out" type of novel. It's a shame on the one hand, because "Cows" was so amazing (it wasn't JUST about grossness). But on the other hand "High Life" is so astoundingly wild and fierce and outrageous that you can't help but embrace it for what it is.

You'll often hear authors talked about in these terms -- their books are described as disgusting, violent, sickening. Well, Stokoe actually deserves this praise/criticism. I doubt you'll be able to find a book more gleefully willing to turn your stomach anytime soon.

Rating:
Summary: WEEEE
Review: matthew stokoe is an amazing writer.
in cows, his first novel, it got all crazy from the very start.

in high life stokoe shows considerable restraint by slowly getting to the good stuff. by doing this he has made the intense scenes even more powerful because they aren't the focus. they just happen to be in the story.

once again, stokoe is an amazing writer. i look forward to reading more from him.

p.s. anyone comparing stokoe to bret easton ellis, or ian banks, or poppy z brite are [fools]. he blows them away completely and then goes back and rapes their skulls.

Rating:
Summary: Brutally brilliant.
Review: matthew stokoe is an amazing writer.
in cows, his first novel, it got all crazy from the very start.

in high life stokoe shows considerable restraint by slowly getting to the good stuff. by doing this he has made the intense scenes even more powerful because they aren't the focus. they just happen to be in the story.
once again, stokoe is an amazing writer. i look forward to reading more from him.

p.s. anyone comparing stokoe to bret easton ellis, or ian banks, or poppy z brite are [not right]. he blows them away completely and then goes back and rapes their skulls.

Rating:
Summary: A high-quality bad book.
Review: Matthew Stokoe is the author whom I most hopefully wait for another novel from.

Rating:
Summary: Twisted modernly poetic tale of yearning & brutal sexuality
Review: When I read Stokoe's first novel `Cows' I knew I was onto something good. His second novel, `High Life' is a tragic and poetic journey into the human soul.

High Life is a story told by Jack, a guy who just wants to play the game by the rules and get ahead in the competitive world of Los Angeles, a man obsessed with the personalities he sees on the TV screen every day. Jack is basically lonely, and winds out marrying a hooker named Karen, embarking on a two-year marriage that gets neither of them anywhere. But there is comfort in having someone there at the end of the day, someone to look out for, and when Karen is brutally murdered, Jack's outlook on the world changes. Only weeks before Karen's murder, Jack found out that she had sold one of her kidneys for thirty thousand dollars, and when her mutilated body is found, the scar had been removed.

Jack no longer believes that working hard and obeying the rules will get anyone ahead, and embarks on a new career of hustling down in the seedy side of Hollywood. He gets hooked up with his friend Rex, who introduces him to an escort agency, which caters to a finer, wealthier class of clients. From here he meets Bella, an extremely wealthy woman with perverted tastes. Bella takes an interest in Jack, and with her wealth and power gets him a spot on a Hollywood Gossip show, introducing him to the finer things and people he only dreamed about knowing.

In the meantime, policeman Ted Ryan is hot on Jack's trail, not because he works homicide, but because he knew Jack's wife Karen in a professional way, having been a frequent client. Ryan is not a good cop, perverted and psychotic, and he peruses Jack with relentless viciousness, even into the posh Malibu home of Bella and her father Powell, where the three become linked over Karen's death.

High Life is not a pretty tale, there is not one redeemable character in it. It is filled with drug abuse, prostitution, violent couplings, necrophilia, fecal stimulations, foul language, and operations that make medical malpractice look like tea parties. It is brutal, ugly, violent, and unforgiving. So why did I like it so much?

Matthew Stokoe is a truly gifted writer, I felt every ounce of pain that Jack felt though Stokoe's vivid and animated prose. His ability to project Jack's feelings of despair, isolation, yearning, and desperation is remarkable. High Life is one of those books that, when I finished, I found it hard to pick up another book because I had been so involved in Jack's life that nothing else measured up. There was just so much emotion in this story, desolation and bitterness and a hurtful longing for what society tells us we need to have and be to belong, that I was overcome with the same sensations that drove Jack to his deviant lifestyle choices.

You had better have a strong stomach for the nastier scenes of sexual defecation and corpse manipulation, not to mention Bella's secret little fetish with fresh human organs, but if gross horror is your cup of tea, you absolutely must pick up High Life and give it a read. I can't wait to see what Matthew Stokoe comes up with next. Enjoy!!