The Marbled Swarm Paperback – November 1, 2011

Dennis Cooper is an incredible writer who dares to go places very few other authors refuse to touch. His books are shocking, grotesque but also masterfully structured, beautifully written and seem even more vital than ever in 2020. If you can stomach the extreme depictions of sexual violence you’ll find an incredible and indelible voice you’ll never forget.

For me, this book started out as a clever, sharp narrative with a narrator that was both brilliant and depraved, but as the story went on, the power of the narrative seemed to get weaker and weaker. I'm not sure if this was intentional, given the surprise ending, but I definitely went from being in awe of the writing to feeling disappointed as the prose wound down. Interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying.

Dennis Cooper's most maddening book so far. I hated it so much the first time I read it that I had to read it again immediately. There's apparently a mystery in the book which is neither explicitly stated nor obviously solved. Characters overlap and overwrite each other, the plot sometimes becomes so dreamy that it almost ceases to exist, and then the sexual violence takes over. None of that should come as a surprise to someone's who's read Cooper before, but the intensity and indirectness of his style are all ratcheted up to maximum levels in this book. I can't say it's my favorite Cooper novel (that honor goes to The Sluts), but it is one of the most intriguing and frustrating. Maybe start with Frisk or Try and work your way up to this one? Unless you like literary puzzles, I guess. If you figure out the mystery, please let me know.

He was very surprised when he got it for Christmas . He was looking for it to buy but he was so happy he got it.

Prepare to be confounded. This is a confusing, beautiful, funny, violent, explicit, subversive, piece of art that will lead you down a road thinking you've got the gist of the narrative, then send you flying into left field. Definitely worth multiple reads. One of the most confusing and rewarding novels I've ever read.

A little too verbose for my liking. I felt like I was reading from a thesaurus, but I suppose that's the point. The narrator wants to confuse you with his nonsensical ramblings. No really. He says it right there in the first chapter or so. But I think it came down to taste. Don't deny yourself on account of my review.

I like Dennis Cooper's work but also thought I had a handle on it, but this book genuinely caught me off guard, doing things with the language that I wasn't expecting. Amazing sentences, a kind of fever dream, with dark Sadean content. This is Dennis Cooper at his best.

I felt like I had been strapped in to a ride through a horrifying nightmare. Something like the boat ride in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but to the 10th power. I didn't want to escape it though, which is good, because there was no way to get out. Not for the feint of heart or the weak of stomach.