SOURCE: Limsky, Drew. Review of Try, by Dennis Cooper. Lambda Book Report 4, no. 5 (July-August 1994): 35.

In the following review, Limsky judges Try as overly self-conscious and redundant.

It's not easy to care about a cast of characters composed of junkies, pedophiles and necrophiliacs, and who are continually described in terms of their filth, yet readers may develop a grudging affection for Ziggy, the hapless protagonist of Dennis Coopers third novel, Try.

The product of an abusive upbringing, Ziggy is a mess. One of his two gay fathers, Brice, has been molesting the eighteen-year-old since childhood, and Roger, Brice's ex and Ziggy's other father, habitually fantasizes about rimming his son; he writes Ziggy a series of letters delineating his proficiency in this and other anal-related activities. Disturbingly, every male character over thirty in Try is preoccupied by the anuses of adolescent boys; in fact, the novel is so replete with...