Wormwood: A Collection of Short Stories

What a book. I stumbled across it accidentally, in its original hard cover form entitled Swamp Foetus. Once I read a few pages of the title story, I was hooked and I simply had to finish. I read the rest of the book in one sitting. The stories are dark and haunting, and sometimes the images are disturbingly graphic and morbid, with ample helpings of grave robbing, rotting flesh, exhumed corpses, etc. Especially good is the title story, about two androgynous goth beauties obsessed with death and always in search of the ultimate thrill. If you have a taste for the macabre and necro-erotic, this collection of stories is for you. The images and characters will stay with you long after you cease reading it.

I think Ms. Brite's is comparable to Harlan Ellison in her ability to mix startling imagery with vivid emotion. This book is a steal at such a cheap price.

I wasn't expecting short stories, but when i found out that a few of her stories had the same characters in it as the first two books, I was in love. I think it is ingenius to be able to write books with totally different themes, but be able to include the same characters, even if only as a cameo. She has impressed me yet again.

Last year, when I was barely fourteen, my friend let me borrow her copy of Wormwood. It's one of the best pieces of literature I have yet to read. Words cannot describe fairly the way this book left me feeling. I was literally thirsty for more, for anything else. I had never before read anything that I considered flawless until I found Poppy Z. Brite. The use of language, and the stories themselves, are stunningly perfect, at least in my eyes. If you write, or if you love amazing stories, you should love this.

There are times when I am reading a Poppy Z. Brite novel and I feel bogged down waiting for action, utterly bored with the nth sexcapade of the main characters. This might be why I love this book of short stories more than anything else she's written. While some stories show signs of youth, more often Ms. Brite's fluid prose is utterly seductive and disturbing. Where other writers either clunk along or try to poetry us to death, Poppy Z. Brite maintains the perfect balance between plot and style. Her stories are scary, menacing and beautiful at once. She says what needs saying and then breaks off leaving the images to fester in our minds for days, weeks, years. Possibly one of the most worthy-of-repeat-viewings collection in short story history