SOURCE: Byrne, Jack. Review of Frisk, by Dennis Cooper. Review of Contemporary Fiction 11, no. 3 (fall 1991): 280.

In the following review, Byrne discusses the perverse themes and obsessions in Frisk.

“When Dennis is thirteen, he sees a series of photographs of a boy apparently unimaginably mutilated. Dennis is not shocked, but stunned by their mystery and their power; their glimpse at the reality of death. Some years later, Dennis meets the boy who posed for the photographs. He did it for love” (jacket). Frisk is about what happens between Dennis's first look at such “snuff” shots and his last look at the reality behind the “snuff” and things created for the boys in the back room: “The wound is actually a glop of paint, ink, makeup, tape, cotton, tissue, and papier-mâché sculpted to suggest the inside of a human body.” Is murder the ultimate experience? Dennis Cooper goes beyond...