SOURCE: Cooper, Dennis, and Kasia Boddy. “Conversation with Dennis Cooper.” Critical Quarterly 37, no. 3 (autumn 1995): 103-15.

In the following interview, Cooper discusses the development of his thematic concerns and stylistic approach, his literary influences, the significance of representative characters in his fiction, and his interest in studying the notion of bliss in future works.

[Boddy]: I'd like to start by asking you about what seems like a dominant concern of your work—both thematically and stylistically—the relationship between inside and out, the exterior and the interior of things.

[Cooper]: I'm always trying to construct that dichotomy.

But sometimes it's not clear which is more desirable—the surface or the interior. Sometimes it's one, sometimes the other.

Well, confusion is central to the work—lured by the surface, then horrified by the interior, or disappointed. It's a battle within the work over which has the more information in it...