book cover of Poisoning Eros
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Poisoning Eros

(2002)
A novel by

 
 
it's a shame that relatively few have sensibilities capable of appreciating this sort of boundlessly horrific writing. this effort of frictionless collaboration from wrath james white & monica j. o'rourke is an amazing symbiotic work of fiction that displays what unfettered creative urges can do when combined with keen and stygian intellects.

we have here a fluid and timeless read in the novella poisoning eros--i assure you, the title is apt. the protagonist is a woman who has truly "hit bottom", a former porn star who has descended to the lowest levels of humanity because of her addictions; a situation that paves the way for the story to unfold in rabid extremes.

when the book began, amid blasphemously detailed scenes of the most twisted forms of sex imaginable, i thought i had the plot pegged. then as events continued, growing increasingly depraved and surreal until the supernatural and the demonic were involved, the overload of imagery began to have the strangest effect on me, a sort of alien numbness similar to the phonetic repetition of familiar words until they become foreign and meaningless.

that's when things became really interesting. i was set up, just as our 'heroine' was by all the manipulative bastards in her life looking to profit from her body, letting her self-destructive urges motivate her for them. my attentuation to the initial graphic plague of ruinous horrors was sadistically flayed from me by the ensuing events.

soon wrath and monica force the reader down into Hell in a vivid infernal depiction that would make dante weep like a little girl. through the terribly skillful writing of these two authors we are immersed in the torturous infinities of the underworld, exploring themes of the exquisitely varied agonies that the mind can conjure and inflict with a barbed and analytical wit. just how much pain can the mind and body, can one's essence tolerate? how far can a threshold be torn and bludgeoned and mutilated? we venture forth in a very personal narrative to apprehend the answers... & we soon learn that corporeal pain is ephemeral, but ethereal wounds are eternal.

peering beneath the veneer of decayed flesh, decrypting words from the shrieks of anguish, a beautifully designed core and numerous allegorical parallels become apparent. one concept in particular that i meditated upon was that the same contradictions, the same Pyrrhic justice in the mythical religious legislature of Heaven and Hell exists in our own secular penal system as well--junkies incarcerated for their addictions with rapists and murderers, rather than given proper treatment; a focus on meaningless punishment rather than rehabilitation... humans convicted for crimes they didn't commit sentenced to lives of torment while seconds pass like eternities.

using this setting of Hell, wrath and monica are able to describe things that i'm astounded can be set to words (the description of the demons are genuinely incredible). beyond the themes of sex and violence, drugs and disease, a strong and compelling tale of redemption comes to order---and this tale does not end the way anyone (outside the leering spirit of the marquis de sade, perhaps) could expect.

a gripping, intense collection of pages, both devious and inspiring... well worth procuring... well worth the trauma.


Genre: Horror

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