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Ugly Man
“[A] brilliant, triumphantly lurid writer as well as a supremely talented, elegant stylist whose prose is smart and nervy. He might also be the last literary outlaw in mainstream American fiction.” —Bret Easton Ellis
Internationally acclaimed writer Dennis Cooper continues to study the material he's always explored honestly, but does so now—in stories—with a sense of awareness and a satirical touch that exploits and winks at his mastery of this world. As it has done for decades, Cooper’s taut, controlled prose lays bare the compulsions and troubling emptiness of the human soul.
Internationally acclaimed writer Dennis Cooper continues to study the material he's always explored honestly, but does so now—in stories—with a sense of awareness and a satirical touch that exploits and winks at his mastery of this world. As it has done for decades, Cooper’s taut, controlled prose lays bare the compulsions and troubling emptiness of the human soul.
190 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 21, 2009
20 people are currently reading
638 people want to read
About the author
Dennis Cooper
109 books1,781 followersDennis Cooper was born on January 10, 1953. He grew up in the Southern California cities of Covina and Arcadia.
He wrote stories and poems from early age but got serious about writing at 15 after reading Arthur Rimbaud and The Marquis de Sade. He attended LA county public schools until the 8th grade when he transferred to a private school, Flintridge Preparatory School for Boys in La Canada, California, from which he was expelled in the 11th grade.
While at Flintridge, he met his friend George Miles, who would become his muse and the subject of much of his future writing. He attended Pasadena City College for two years, attending poetry writing workshops taught by the poets Ronald Koertge and Jerene Hewitt. He then attended one year of university at Pitzer College in Claremont, California, where he studied with the poet Bert Meyers.
In 1976, he founded Little Caesar Magazine and Press, which he ran until 1982. From 1980 to 1983 he was Director of Programming for the Beyond Baroque Literary/Art Center in Venice, California. From 1983 to 1985, he lived in New York City.
In 1985, he moved to Amsterdam for two and a half years, where he began his ten year long project, The George Miles Cycle, an interconnected sequence of five novels that includes Closer, Frisk, Try, Guide, and Period.
His post-George Miles Cycle novels include My Loose Thread, The Sluts and God, Jr.
Other works include the short-story collections Wrong and Ugly Man, poetry collections The Dream Police and The Weaklings, as well as the recent Smothered in Hugs: Essays, Interviews, Feedback, and Obituaries.
Dennis Cooper currently spends his time between Los Angeles and Paris.
He wrote stories and poems from early age but got serious about writing at 15 after reading Arthur Rimbaud and The Marquis de Sade. He attended LA county public schools until the 8th grade when he transferred to a private school, Flintridge Preparatory School for Boys in La Canada, California, from which he was expelled in the 11th grade.
While at Flintridge, he met his friend George Miles, who would become his muse and the subject of much of his future writing. He attended Pasadena City College for two years, attending poetry writing workshops taught by the poets Ronald Koertge and Jerene Hewitt. He then attended one year of university at Pitzer College in Claremont, California, where he studied with the poet Bert Meyers.
In 1976, he founded Little Caesar Magazine and Press, which he ran until 1982. From 1980 to 1983 he was Director of Programming for the Beyond Baroque Literary/Art Center in Venice, California. From 1983 to 1985, he lived in New York City.
In 1985, he moved to Amsterdam for two and a half years, where he began his ten year long project, The George Miles Cycle, an interconnected sequence of five novels that includes Closer, Frisk, Try, Guide, and Period.
His post-George Miles Cycle novels include My Loose Thread, The Sluts and God, Jr.
Other works include the short-story collections Wrong and Ugly Man, poetry collections The Dream Police and The Weaklings, as well as the recent Smothered in Hugs: Essays, Interviews, Feedback, and Obituaries.
Dennis Cooper currently spends his time between Los Angeles and Paris.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 98 reviews
August 26, 2020
Angsty little boys who have rape-death fantasies run into angsty bigger boys who fantasize about being the active part of the rape-torture-murder scene. And then the angsty little boys die at the hands of the angsty bigger boys. Over and over and over, this man has the temerity to tell the same stupid story in the same vapid tone, using the same puerile style of sentence. Childish writing applied to a very grownup subject matter doesn't make the writing any less childish.
Remember Poppy Brite's _Exquisite Corpse_? I think that is the right title. She dealt with the same subject matter. Her book showed enough discipline to give some detail of the process involved without reducing her work to a mindless bloodfest. This approach gives the reader a feeling of horror that is not to be found when the narrator casually mentions that the victim now has no legs and moves on. She also applied her powerful writing skills to make her book interesting as a study of the imaginary psychology of her imaginary killer.
So, it's not squeamishness that makes me hate this book. This book is what makes me hate this book. It feels like something written by a high school freshman.
Remember Poppy Brite's _Exquisite Corpse_? I think that is the right title. She dealt with the same subject matter. Her book showed enough discipline to give some detail of the process involved without reducing her work to a mindless bloodfest. This approach gives the reader a feeling of horror that is not to be found when the narrator casually mentions that the victim now has no legs and moves on. She also applied her powerful writing skills to make her book interesting as a study of the imaginary psychology of her imaginary killer.
So, it's not squeamishness that makes me hate this book. This book is what makes me hate this book. It feels like something written by a high school freshman.
September 26, 2022
Finds Cooper’s prose by and large in the fizzier, overtly humorous register of The Sluts—and it suits him very well, though the subjects are as macabre and obsessional as ever. Some pieces, like “Jerk”, the title story, “The Anal-Retentive Line Editor” (an instant classic and something I’d recommend even to the most Cooper-skeptical reader), “Oliver Twink”, and the stupefyingly bizarre and apocalyptic “The Ash Gray Proclamation” stand among the most interesting and adventurous things Cooper’s ever written; others are, by varying degrees, slighter or merely clever, but nearly all display his talent for distilling the absurd, tragic, disturbing, and mysterious into smoothed-off, deceptively casual prose. (One of my personal favorites is in fact the book’s shortest piece, “Santa Claus vs. Johnny Crawford”, which manages elicit an impressively wide variety of emotional responses within the space of a single paragraph.) It lacks the density and greatness of his novels, but it’s a joy to see such a gifted writer graft his familiar fixations into more playful forms and voices.
November 10, 2011
Definitely not for everyone, and definitely not for the faint of heart or easily disturbed, this is still a work of merit and intelligence though at times not as brilliant or fulfilled as its initial premise lays out (this is the first of Cooper I've read).
I tried reading this book once before and couldn't get through it. After actually throwing it out it continued to stick with me, a combination of a book unfinished with a definite curiosity to see where the author intended to go with his subject and why.
So, six months to a year later I pick up another copy of Ugly Man Stories and after a protracted period of other books finally settled in to read it. It took roughly three or four days but after having read it i can say that it's with only some doubt I finished the short story collection.
Cooper is the master of his chosen field, genre, whatever classification can be given to the bleak and violent worlds he creates with sadomasochistic characters engaging in every taboo both sexual and otherwise while feeling little to no satisfaction before, during, or after said acts. His prose is minimalist and serves well for transgressive fiction simply detailing what happens without remorse or sympathy.
The merit in this writing is in the exploration of worlds both actual and literary where two few are brave or foolish enough to discuss, especially at the lengths to which Cooper does it. Pedophilia, incest, rape, drug addiction, necrophilia, murder, and all this occurring many times in most of his stories show Cooper's boldness and certainly his prowess as a writer for his excavation of meaning (or usually lack thereof) from any and all of the acts mentioned not to mention his lack of concern with literary decorum and his lack of attempts to deify any of the activities he shows, they simply are what the are.
But it does get exhausting and incredibly heavy after a while. How many times and how many different ways can you read about (insert taboo sex and violence here) before it begins to feel a bit one note and even pointless? Cooper never quite reaches either of those points but the book, to me at least, struck me not so much as blackly ironic or satirical but more like an exercise in subversive literary exploration which I've heard Cooper does to even greater lengths in his acclaimed 'George Miles' cycle.
So, definitely a broadening and opening kind of read, though not the explosive brilliance it could have been had the material been handled with a bit more precision and cohesion. It may take a while for me, but I'd love to read more of Cooper's works.
I tried reading this book once before and couldn't get through it. After actually throwing it out it continued to stick with me, a combination of a book unfinished with a definite curiosity to see where the author intended to go with his subject and why.
So, six months to a year later I pick up another copy of Ugly Man Stories and after a protracted period of other books finally settled in to read it. It took roughly three or four days but after having read it i can say that it's with only some doubt I finished the short story collection.
Cooper is the master of his chosen field, genre, whatever classification can be given to the bleak and violent worlds he creates with sadomasochistic characters engaging in every taboo both sexual and otherwise while feeling little to no satisfaction before, during, or after said acts. His prose is minimalist and serves well for transgressive fiction simply detailing what happens without remorse or sympathy.
The merit in this writing is in the exploration of worlds both actual and literary where two few are brave or foolish enough to discuss, especially at the lengths to which Cooper does it. Pedophilia, incest, rape, drug addiction, necrophilia, murder, and all this occurring many times in most of his stories show Cooper's boldness and certainly his prowess as a writer for his excavation of meaning (or usually lack thereof) from any and all of the acts mentioned not to mention his lack of concern with literary decorum and his lack of attempts to deify any of the activities he shows, they simply are what the are.
But it does get exhausting and incredibly heavy after a while. How many times and how many different ways can you read about (insert taboo sex and violence here) before it begins to feel a bit one note and even pointless? Cooper never quite reaches either of those points but the book, to me at least, struck me not so much as blackly ironic or satirical but more like an exercise in subversive literary exploration which I've heard Cooper does to even greater lengths in his acclaimed 'George Miles' cycle.
So, definitely a broadening and opening kind of read, though not the explosive brilliance it could have been had the material been handled with a bit more precision and cohesion. It may take a while for me, but I'd love to read more of Cooper's works.
February 19, 2015
Dennis Cooper torna a insozzare le librerie con una nuova raccolta di racconti che si presenta innanzitutto provocatoria sotto l'aspetto formale: com'è tipico del suo gusto sperimentale, il racconto tradizionale viene sempre più soppiantato da altri tipi di testo, ingegnosamente confezionati, teoricamente del tutto estranei alla funzione letteraria. Quanto al contenuto, è il solito Cooper, questa volta però caratterizzato da una accentuata ossessione verso la morte.
Al di là della provocazione e dei temi forti, la raccolta non manca di offrire dei racconti molto, molto buoni, di alto livello letterario, capaci di suscitare più che una semplice reazione di disgusto e di sorpresa, facendo sorgere, così, l'inizio di una sotterranea, inconscia e inquieta riflessione che accompagna tutta la lettura.
Tra i racconti di maggior rilievo: Jerk introduce subito lo scabroso tema della morte, associandolo alle devianze giovanili e agli snuff movie; The Anal-Retentive Line Editor è un divertentissimo racconto che si fa gioco del lavoro degli editor, immaginando la corrispondenza tra uno scrittore erotico e un oltremodo pignolo editor che si sofferma su ogni singola parola di una scena di sesso; Oliver Twink (geniale già nel titolo) è uno struggente dialogo botta-e-risposta, singolare nell'impostazione del testo, ai margini estremi delle pagine. Ma si segnalano anche: un paio di racconti lunghi mezza pagina (ce n'è uno che provocatoriamente connette il mito di Santa Claus con l'abuso sessuale), diversi racconti in forma di sceneggiatura, altri più tradizionali dal forte sapore autobiografico. E per chiudere in bellezza: un saggio biografico su una famiglia di celebri porno attori e le recensioni ai "peggiori siti porno gay russi".
Completa la raccolta un apparato biografico dell'autore, con interviste e conversazioni e le liste dei suoi cinquanta libri / dischi / film / etc preferiti. Un vero regalo per veri fan.
Al di là della provocazione e dei temi forti, la raccolta non manca di offrire dei racconti molto, molto buoni, di alto livello letterario, capaci di suscitare più che una semplice reazione di disgusto e di sorpresa, facendo sorgere, così, l'inizio di una sotterranea, inconscia e inquieta riflessione che accompagna tutta la lettura.
Tra i racconti di maggior rilievo: Jerk introduce subito lo scabroso tema della morte, associandolo alle devianze giovanili e agli snuff movie; The Anal-Retentive Line Editor è un divertentissimo racconto che si fa gioco del lavoro degli editor, immaginando la corrispondenza tra uno scrittore erotico e un oltremodo pignolo editor che si sofferma su ogni singola parola di una scena di sesso; Oliver Twink (geniale già nel titolo) è uno struggente dialogo botta-e-risposta, singolare nell'impostazione del testo, ai margini estremi delle pagine. Ma si segnalano anche: un paio di racconti lunghi mezza pagina (ce n'è uno che provocatoriamente connette il mito di Santa Claus con l'abuso sessuale), diversi racconti in forma di sceneggiatura, altri più tradizionali dal forte sapore autobiografico. E per chiudere in bellezza: un saggio biografico su una famiglia di celebri porno attori e le recensioni ai "peggiori siti porno gay russi".
Completa la raccolta un apparato biografico dell'autore, con interviste e conversazioni e le liste dei suoi cinquanta libri / dischi / film / etc preferiti. Un vero regalo per veri fan.
May 12, 2010
This is so, so messed up. I don't think I've ever read a collection of short stories that is anywhere near as inventive as this collection. Perspectives, narration, everything is fucked with. But nothing is quite as fucked as the subject matter, which is always--ALWAYS--oriented around murder and gay sex. With the possible exception of the one story that is just a survey of the worst russian gay porn sites.
If you want to read a bunch of the most brilliant stories ever written about murder and gay sex, this is absolutely the book you should read.
If you want to read a bunch of the most brilliant stories ever written about murder and gay sex, this is absolutely the book you should read.
January 29, 2023
The Anal-Retentive Editor is one of the funniest things I've read, in which the editor of a pornographic short story develops an obsession with the author and starts hitting on him through notes on the text. As long as Dennis occasionally writes something as good as this I'll probably keep coming back to him from time to time.
The other 17 stories range from OK to offensively bad provocation for the sake of provocation. They're pretty short so I kept reading to see if there were any other gems, but the closing Ash Gray Proclamation read like a chatgpt prompt to write racist Bush era pseudo-satire in the voice of South Park and de Sade.
The other 17 stories range from OK to offensively bad provocation for the sake of provocation. They're pretty short so I kept reading to see if there were any other gems, but the closing Ash Gray Proclamation read like a chatgpt prompt to write racist Bush era pseudo-satire in the voice of South Park and de Sade.
January 13, 2025
Classic Dennis Cooper in short story form.
June 22, 2009
Where does an outsider artist go once the taboos of drug abuse and man/boy love have become played out?
Sexualized cannibal porn.
Seriously.
Frankly, I'm baffled by all the accolades Cooper receives. If you stripped away the outsider lit attributes (illicit sex, fetishized pain, etc.) and substituted it with say long-distance running or extreme hoarding, i.e. something equally dangerous and crazy but doesn't require a victim, would it have the same effect? I can't answer that question because I don't know what that "effect" is namely because fetish art is seldom interesting to those who aren't invested in the fetish either as fantasy or in practice.
I came to Ugly Man having read only one other Cooper novel, God Jr., which most consider his most mainstream novel. So I probably brought some misguided and/or naieve expectations to my reading of Ugly Man. While God Jr. is a brilliant look at what happens when people go "off the map" (a bereaved father seeks consolation after his son's death by getting stoned and playing his son's favorite video game in seach of the creatures who knew him best), Ugly Man is a scattershot investigation of teen boredom, male manipulation, and sexualized cannibalism.
I wish I'd read the interview with the author at the back of the book first to help put some of Cooper's predelictions in context. For example, Cooper explains how his affinity for Bresson led to his use of subjects one wouldn't ordinarily consider worthy of art. I also am intrigued by the way Cooper's characters often appear in some altered form after they die, a continuing exploration of realms "off the map."
Ultimately, however, I'm not convinced the whole corpse-eating thing isn't an absurd extension of the protagonists' oral fixation with the male anus, i.e. a sick joke.
Sexualized cannibal porn.
Seriously.
Frankly, I'm baffled by all the accolades Cooper receives. If you stripped away the outsider lit attributes (illicit sex, fetishized pain, etc.) and substituted it with say long-distance running or extreme hoarding, i.e. something equally dangerous and crazy but doesn't require a victim, would it have the same effect? I can't answer that question because I don't know what that "effect" is namely because fetish art is seldom interesting to those who aren't invested in the fetish either as fantasy or in practice.
I came to Ugly Man having read only one other Cooper novel, God Jr., which most consider his most mainstream novel. So I probably brought some misguided and/or naieve expectations to my reading of Ugly Man. While God Jr. is a brilliant look at what happens when people go "off the map" (a bereaved father seeks consolation after his son's death by getting stoned and playing his son's favorite video game in seach of the creatures who knew him best), Ugly Man is a scattershot investigation of teen boredom, male manipulation, and sexualized cannibalism.
I wish I'd read the interview with the author at the back of the book first to help put some of Cooper's predelictions in context. For example, Cooper explains how his affinity for Bresson led to his use of subjects one wouldn't ordinarily consider worthy of art. I also am intrigued by the way Cooper's characters often appear in some altered form after they die, a continuing exploration of realms "off the map."
Ultimately, however, I'm not convinced the whole corpse-eating thing isn't an absurd extension of the protagonists' oral fixation with the male anus, i.e. a sick joke.
August 3, 2014
At first I thought this book was alright, but after going over the stories again I feel like this book is great. I think at first I missed a lot of the humor. My favorite story is "The Anal-Retentive Line Editor" where a erotic magazine editor begins to hit on the author through the edits in his work. It is probably one of the most creative and hilarious things I have ever read in a book. I am now just waiting for my copy of The Marbled Swarm to come in to get more of his fantastic prose.
September 26, 2020
I've read bits and pieces of Cooper in the past, but this was his first book I read front to back. The author's fetishes aren't something that interest me, but there was a lot of very dark humor and a lot of cleverness in these short stories. I read these stories separately over a time span of a couple months, if I read them closer together, I could see them getting repetitive in their themes.
March 21, 2024
more detailed review to follow
dennis cooper i love you and i’m obsessed with your brain
[Edit]
To no one’s surprise I loved this one.
This was the ninth of Cooper’s works that I have read, and I have been mesmerised by and addicted to all of them. I think I don’t need to explain how obsessed I am with his writing, and so an anthology of his less accessible writing all together in one place was perfect for me.
This book collects 18 of Cooper’s works, most of which were previously published in literary magazines etc. some time between 1993 and 2008, as well as six of the poems also found in Cooper’s previously published poetry collection “The Weaklings” (which I haven’t gotten my hands on yet, unfortunately). There is also an excerpt from an interview between Cooper and Robert Glück, as well as some lists of Cooper’s favourite works of art in all its forms (books, films etc.).
The stories ranged in length between four and 59 pages, with most being on the shorter end of the spectrum. The four longest stories here are “Jerk”, which had also previously been published as a standalone book, “The Anal-Retentive Line Editor”, “Oliver Twink” and “The Ash Gray Proclamation”
All of these stories certainly had the typical Cooper-charme, which is exactly what I want from all my books, really. The stories that I would describe as my favourites here and that stuck with me the most were Jerk, The Hostage Drama, The Anal-Retentive Line Editor, Oliver Twink, The Worst (1960-1971) and The Ash Gray Proclamation.
The stories in here very greatly not only in length but also in form, with Jerk for example being told as a play written and partially performed by one of the people involved in the real-life story it is based upon, The Anal-Retentive Line Editor as a series of emails sent by an increasingly desperate and horny editor to the author whose work he is editing and Oliver Twink as a sort of conversation between two individuals, reading almost like the script for a movie or play. Several of these are told in that script-ish way of “Name:”, which I found made for a really interesting reading experience.
Cooper is truly a master of transgressive writing, willing to experiment with form and plot in ways I have begun to seek out with other authors, though I rarely find anyone who does it as well as Cooper does.
I will definitely be re-reading this collection eventually, as several of the stories and characters have made their home in my head, and I cannot wait to experience them again. As always, superb.
dennis cooper i love you and i’m obsessed with your brain
[Edit]
To no one’s surprise I loved this one.
This was the ninth of Cooper’s works that I have read, and I have been mesmerised by and addicted to all of them. I think I don’t need to explain how obsessed I am with his writing, and so an anthology of his less accessible writing all together in one place was perfect for me.
This book collects 18 of Cooper’s works, most of which were previously published in literary magazines etc. some time between 1993 and 2008, as well as six of the poems also found in Cooper’s previously published poetry collection “The Weaklings” (which I haven’t gotten my hands on yet, unfortunately). There is also an excerpt from an interview between Cooper and Robert Glück, as well as some lists of Cooper’s favourite works of art in all its forms (books, films etc.).
The stories ranged in length between four and 59 pages, with most being on the shorter end of the spectrum. The four longest stories here are “Jerk”, which had also previously been published as a standalone book, “The Anal-Retentive Line Editor”, “Oliver Twink” and “The Ash Gray Proclamation”
All of these stories certainly had the typical Cooper-charme, which is exactly what I want from all my books, really. The stories that I would describe as my favourites here and that stuck with me the most were Jerk, The Hostage Drama, The Anal-Retentive Line Editor, Oliver Twink, The Worst (1960-1971) and The Ash Gray Proclamation.
The stories in here very greatly not only in length but also in form, with Jerk for example being told as a play written and partially performed by one of the people involved in the real-life story it is based upon, The Anal-Retentive Line Editor as a series of emails sent by an increasingly desperate and horny editor to the author whose work he is editing and Oliver Twink as a sort of conversation between two individuals, reading almost like the script for a movie or play. Several of these are told in that script-ish way of “Name:”, which I found made for a really interesting reading experience.
Cooper is truly a master of transgressive writing, willing to experiment with form and plot in ways I have begun to seek out with other authors, though I rarely find anyone who does it as well as Cooper does.
I will definitely be re-reading this collection eventually, as several of the stories and characters have made their home in my head, and I cannot wait to experience them again. As always, superb.
May 12, 2019
This book is masturbatory in every sense of the word.
There’s something to be said for literary masturbation, though. Cooper pushes the boundaries of what literature is and could be, and in that sense, these stories inspire experimentation. In short form, he deals with many of the same themes which crop up in his novels: obsession, ownership, degradation, embodiment, the permeating apathy of modern society, and, as always, the male ass. Cooper knows what he likes.
The experience of reading Ugly Man was very different from that of reading Cooper’s longer works, in part because he only has room for one or two experimental departures from the norm in each story. The upside is that the stories are far more readable than his novels—which seem to be written for critics and scholars rather than readers—but when the gimmick doesn’t work, as is the case in “The Noll Dynasty,” there’s very little content to fall back on.
There are some gems in this collection, such as “The Fifteen Worst Russian Gay Porn Websites” and “Oliver Twink” but the final story in the seemed so trite and gratuitous that it almost ruined the others for me. In “The Ash Gray Proclamation,” two underaged boys are obsessed with sex, death, and debauchery (par for the course, so far) and visit a Muslim psychic to do heroin and...talk about 9/11. It seemed controversial for the sake of being controversial.
If the point was to paint American society as cruel and jaded, he could have accomplished it in half the space. The story dragged. The racism was cringe-worthy, which might have been okay if it read as satire, but it didn’t. It wasn’t deep, wasn’t funny, wasn’t poignant, and didn’t fit well with the other shorts in the collection. I would have rated this book a 4/5 if not for its inclusion.
Cooper takes risks when it comes to style and form, and many of them pay off in a big way, but a few stories fall flat. Over all, Ugly Man is well worth the read if you’re a fan of either snuff or experimental fiction. Take it with a grain of salt.
There’s something to be said for literary masturbation, though. Cooper pushes the boundaries of what literature is and could be, and in that sense, these stories inspire experimentation. In short form, he deals with many of the same themes which crop up in his novels: obsession, ownership, degradation, embodiment, the permeating apathy of modern society, and, as always, the male ass. Cooper knows what he likes.
The experience of reading Ugly Man was very different from that of reading Cooper’s longer works, in part because he only has room for one or two experimental departures from the norm in each story. The upside is that the stories are far more readable than his novels—which seem to be written for critics and scholars rather than readers—but when the gimmick doesn’t work, as is the case in “The Noll Dynasty,” there’s very little content to fall back on.
There are some gems in this collection, such as “The Fifteen Worst Russian Gay Porn Websites” and “Oliver Twink” but the final story in the seemed so trite and gratuitous that it almost ruined the others for me. In “The Ash Gray Proclamation,” two underaged boys are obsessed with sex, death, and debauchery (par for the course, so far) and visit a Muslim psychic to do heroin and...talk about 9/11. It seemed controversial for the sake of being controversial.
If the point was to paint American society as cruel and jaded, he could have accomplished it in half the space. The story dragged. The racism was cringe-worthy, which might have been okay if it read as satire, but it didn’t. It wasn’t deep, wasn’t funny, wasn’t poignant, and didn’t fit well with the other shorts in the collection. I would have rated this book a 4/5 if not for its inclusion.
Cooper takes risks when it comes to style and form, and many of them pay off in a big way, but a few stories fall flat. Over all, Ugly Man is well worth the read if you’re a fan of either snuff or experimental fiction. Take it with a grain of salt.
September 15, 2022
"Excuse this bout of unsexiness on my part, but something about you brings out the sad slut who whispers in my inner ear: 'The only ivory tower you're suited for is waiting in some smoky room between two hairy muscular legs.' Perhaps tonight, my love."
Last story in this is weirdly racist in a way I found distracting, but other than that this is some of my favorite stuff of Cooper's. Some truly incredible stories in here
Last story in this is weirdly racist in a way I found distracting, but other than that this is some of my favorite stuff of Cooper's. Some truly incredible stories in here
May 3, 2025
Essentially read in one sitting; I’ve read most of Coopers books now but the short story format doesn’t give him time to do what I think he particularly excels at, which is building really sympathetic characters in really terrible situations. I think the strongest and most fun story, to me, was “The Anal-Retentive Line Editor,” which I hope I’ll somehow be able to work into teaching one day but definitely won’t hahaha. It’s an alright little collection of short stories, but definitely not a starting place as I think you’d have to spend enough time with Coopers voice to find this charming.
June 10, 2025
Violent sexual fantasies run amok through the gay sex scene. Countless hours of rimming , fisting and describing tight male asses and their crevasses- mixed in with body mutilation. A really strange read that feels wrong but at times oh so right. Dark fantasies. Figuring out who you are and kind of realizing you’re a sick, depersonalized fuck. If you wished American Psycho had more pornographic torture this is for you!
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September 4, 2025
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January 22, 2022🔪 un-rateable
Read
December 22, 2023hits and misses, like every short story collection. also dennis cooper at his funniest. and his most masturbatory, which i doubt is a coincidence. anyway! my favourites, in no particular order, were: ugly man, the anal-retentive line editor, oliver twink, and, the worst (1960-1971).
August 12, 2025
I’m actually in love with Dennis Cooper there’s no denying it anymore.
May 21, 2019
3.5 stars median rating overall: I honestly feel that Ugly Man was an enjoyable read overall over the course of 18 short stories told in Cooper's signature apathetic tone. DOo to the varied content of the stories I feel it's only fair to rate them all as individuals.
"Jerk": 5/5 Unlike Closer which came off as linear in plot and literal in storytelling, "Jerk" seems to be a satirical take on the same themes as Closer such as death (and the taboo around it), youthful morality and humanity. "Jerk" is bloated in its storytelling and I absolutely loved it
"Ugly Man": 4/5 Only a few pages long but certainly captivating and blunt.
"The Boy on the Far Left": 3/5 Eh, just alright. I'm sure there's some deep societal criticism going on here but I'm too stupid to know.
"Graduate Seminar": 3/5 Again, fairly forgettable. Not the pick of the pack in this collection.
"Santa Claus vs. Johnny Crawford": 5/5 This mini story is weirdly enchanting in the most unnerving way.
"The Hostage Drama": 4/5 Okay, "The Hostage Drama" is fairly open to interpretational debate and is thoroughly captivating.
"The Brainiacs": 5/5 A criticism of teen arrogance? Hell yeah.
"Knife/Tape/Rope": 3/5 Not the kitten!!!
"The Guro Artists": 2/5 Uhh, again, maybe I'm just not seeing the meaning?
"The Anal-Retentive Line Editor": 5/5 I laughed way to hard, out loud, at this one.
"Oliver Twink": 4/5 A not-so-run-of-the-mill lovers quarrel.
"Brian A.K.A Bear": 3/5 I'm convinced this is from Dennis' life.
"Three Boys,...,": 2/5 Not notably of importance.
"The Worst": 5/5 Again, 99% sure this is autobiographical.
"One night in 1979,...,": 4/5 for the delightful David Bowie scene.
"The Noll Dystany": 2/5 Honestly just boring.
"The Fifteen Worst Russian,...,": 5/5 Again, made me laugh hysterically.
"The Ash Grey Proclamation": 1/5 I'm sure there's so
]me critical merit to this one, but I found it tedious and uninteresting.
July 22, 2009
The Short of It:
WTF?
My Thoughts:
Ugly Man is a collection of short stories. When I say short, I mean short! Some are just a paragraph or two and most are just a few pages long. The stories center around these themes: sex, death and homosexuality...and then more sex and then more death and then toss in some gore for good measure and you've got an idea of what's contained between the covers.
When I read the first story I was shocked! I gasped out loud. Then when I read the next story I shuddered and then slammed it closed. Then somewhere around the fourth I began to look forward to it and that is when I realized that I must be a twisted *uck because how could anyone in her right mind get into this??
These stories include such things as an abusive Santa, a line editor that is a bit anal-retentive (and I mean that in the truest sense of the word), cats being beaten to death and Cooper even includes a list of the worst Russian porn sites. How thoughtful!
If you can deal with the shock value, there is humor. Here is an sample from Santa Claus vs. Johnny Crawford:
"Johnny's psychiatrist gives him troubling news: Generous, gift-giving Santa Claus is in fact his sexually abusive father. Wracked with disbelief, Johnny runs outside and has a nervous breakdown."
I laughed my ass off at that.
There is quite a bit of foul language and crude humor. Definitely not a book for everyone but some may find it interesting. Next time you swing by a bookstore I dare you to give it a looksie.
WTF?
My Thoughts:
Ugly Man is a collection of short stories. When I say short, I mean short! Some are just a paragraph or two and most are just a few pages long. The stories center around these themes: sex, death and homosexuality...and then more sex and then more death and then toss in some gore for good measure and you've got an idea of what's contained between the covers.
When I read the first story I was shocked! I gasped out loud. Then when I read the next story I shuddered and then slammed it closed. Then somewhere around the fourth I began to look forward to it and that is when I realized that I must be a twisted *uck because how could anyone in her right mind get into this??
These stories include such things as an abusive Santa, a line editor that is a bit anal-retentive (and I mean that in the truest sense of the word), cats being beaten to death and Cooper even includes a list of the worst Russian porn sites. How thoughtful!
If you can deal with the shock value, there is humor. Here is an sample from Santa Claus vs. Johnny Crawford:
"Johnny's psychiatrist gives him troubling news: Generous, gift-giving Santa Claus is in fact his sexually abusive father. Wracked with disbelief, Johnny runs outside and has a nervous breakdown."
I laughed my ass off at that.
There is quite a bit of foul language and crude humor. Definitely not a book for everyone but some may find it interesting. Next time you swing by a bookstore I dare you to give it a looksie.
February 1, 2020
With the exception of the one story -- about a pornographic line editor -- it's a de Sade tribute band.
If you're here you probably know the deal with de Sade. The stories here are echos - hell more than echos - direct extensions of the later sections of 120 Days of Sodom.
This is what bothers me. The thing is about 120 Days is its gradual gathering of intensity, from simple ogling, through degrees of increasing sexual stimulation, to acts of debasement and -- only in the end -- of mutilation and outright violence. Murder is the final, most intense act of lust. So a lot of the staff, if we want to call them that, making the de Sade sex-work magic possible in the book, dies in progressively disgusting and degrading ways. Like in Ugly Man.
But in these stories, the first 110 Days (or so) are gone. I don't think of de Sade as subtle exactly, but there's a lot of semen under the bridge before the realization of death and violence and male lust. So if you walk into the book cold, it might seem, well, a little silly.
Of course it's referring to itself as an imperfect copy, a mannered, shallow thing, as a process of its own making. Okay, yeah. Got it. Check.
It's his first for me. Perhaps his others differ.
One of things you say you read. And now I can.
If you're here you probably know the deal with de Sade. The stories here are echos - hell more than echos - direct extensions of the later sections of 120 Days of Sodom.
This is what bothers me. The thing is about 120 Days is its gradual gathering of intensity, from simple ogling, through degrees of increasing sexual stimulation, to acts of debasement and -- only in the end -- of mutilation and outright violence. Murder is the final, most intense act of lust. So a lot of the staff, if we want to call them that, making the de Sade sex-work magic possible in the book, dies in progressively disgusting and degrading ways. Like in Ugly Man.
But in these stories, the first 110 Days (or so) are gone. I don't think of de Sade as subtle exactly, but there's a lot of semen under the bridge before the realization of death and violence and male lust. So if you walk into the book cold, it might seem, well, a little silly.
Of course it's referring to itself as an imperfect copy, a mannered, shallow thing, as a process of its own making. Okay, yeah. Got it. Check.
It's his first for me. Perhaps his others differ.
One of things you say you read. And now I can.
January 27, 2021
This collection was incredibly fucked up. Like so fucking twisted. However, I did actually really enjoy Ugly Man and I thought the stories, though dark as hell, were really funny and original.
January 25, 2014
I finished this, my first book of 2014, today. This is the closest I’ve ever seen Dennis Cooper to being funny, and even here, the work is not so much funny (it’s still gory, sexually graphic, and nihilistic) as it is self-parodying. The final story in the collection, "The Ash Gray Proclamation," is so bizarrely silly it reads like a "South Park" script.
I think Cooper finally realized that a good number of his readers are thoroughly creeped out by him, and while they’ve still continued to read his works, they have wondered if he is in fact a pedophile and a serial killer or just a writer with a very good, albeit dark, imagination.
I see this book as Cooper’s message to his readers that, yes, he knows what we’re thinking, and that it’s all a big joke at the end of the day, and to prove it he’s willing to take some shots at his image, style, and themes. As such, I wouldn’t recommend reading this unless you’d read a lot of his other books first.
I think Cooper finally realized that a good number of his readers are thoroughly creeped out by him, and while they’ve still continued to read his works, they have wondered if he is in fact a pedophile and a serial killer or just a writer with a very good, albeit dark, imagination.
I see this book as Cooper’s message to his readers that, yes, he knows what we’re thinking, and that it’s all a big joke at the end of the day, and to prove it he’s willing to take some shots at his image, style, and themes. As such, I wouldn’t recommend reading this unless you’d read a lot of his other books first.
July 19, 2009
"The Anal Retentive Line Editor" is kinda brilliant, but for the most part this collection is just the same story over and over and over again: under-aged twinks want to get fisted and murdered and dismembered and luckily every guy they meet wants to fist and murder and dismember them. Standard Cooper, plus some inane space fillers. The last story is interesting though. At first I thought it was just another spin on the above, and a very weak one at that. But actually, it seems like it might be a really brilliant closer because it boils Cooper's stock themes and characters down to a very simple script. If it's meant as a parody, a nod to the reader as if to say "Yeah, I know I'm way too preoccupied with this shit, here's another one" then it works. Home run. If not, well, homeboy needs to have a new idea.
June 12, 2009
Just an incredible collection--though, as always, I warn that it is not for the faint of heart. Cooper's use of dismemberment and cannibalism (something of a new twist) as embodied exploration of the metaphors of the "porn reflex" of attraction are just as intense here as in his other work. I love the idea of collecting some of the scattered writing from over the years in one place, too. The only reason this one doesn't get 5 stars is that a few of the pieces sometimes shorthand their Cooper-ness in favor of brevity, and I think this magic is so dark and powerful, it has to be handled a bit less brief than that.
September 15, 2013
This is the first work by Dennis Cooper I have ever read and I think what has struck me most about it is how Cooper manages to make material I would normally think of as something I’d have no interest in reading about into fiction that is completely readable and, yes, even enjoyable. I can see where the topics and means and portrayals and blah blah blah would make some of the more sensitive readers around here uncomfortable, and I’m most certainly not saying that this is a book that everybody will appreciate in the same way I have. But all of that being said, I thought it was great, I had a great time reading it, and I will definitely be looking to read more Cooper in the future.
August 13, 2017
"Stories" here includes various formats. Some are 1-2 page prose pieces. Some are scripts. Some are just lists with commentary (e.g. a list of bad russian gay porn sites). The general unifying vibe is gross-out humor in combination with DCs typical themes of failure of language or language-as-artifice, death-as-beauty, and so forth. Took me two readings to enjoy it. The edition I have is Harper Perennial which includes some solid supplemental content that's worth the price of admission: lists of favorites (novels, films, bands, guided by voices songs, etc. - DC is a supreme archivist), an interview with some treatment of Rimbaud and Robert Bresson, as well as 5 poems.
May 21, 2009
Dennis Cooper is without a doubt one of the great writers living today. For one, he's hysterical. And two, he has a Beckett type of genius of capturing souls who are traveling from one place to another. Maybe from earth to hell/heaven or somewhere inbetween.
Essential collection of short stories that I think eventually will be considered an American classic. I think they are at this very moment.
Essential collection of short stories that I think eventually will be considered an American classic. I think they are at this very moment.
July 6, 2009
Sporting one of the ugliest covers I've ever seen I wondered if I'd not be able to slip under the spell of Mr. Cooper's work for the first time. Then I *felt* the cover and felt repulsed, so I kind of figured this was going somewhere, and I did, in fact, fall lock-step back in love once again. I always feel like his books are some sort of high-school crush I can return to to get jockeyed around, pushed, shoved, kissed hard on the mouth, and then dumped. It hurts so nicely.
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