I Wished I Hadn't Read It

I Wished, by Dennis Cooper. Over the years I’ve come across a few articles and YouTube videos mentioning what a genius underground or outsider or avant garde writer Cooper was. All the articles and videos made a big fuss of him being a homosexual. That always set off a literary alarm that warned ‘the guy is not a writer, he’s a homosexual who types.’

I finally decided to read one of his books. This one. I Wished. Yup. He’s a homosexual who types. This thin work, 127 little pages, is about an old boyfriend who killed himself decades ago. About 20 of the 127 pages are interesting, the rest are tedious or worse. Particularly difficult to get through was the chapter in which Cooper has Santa Claus struggling with what gift to give Cooper’s old boyfriend. Apparently this task is so monumental, it triggers an existential crisis in Santa. Or something like, I could barely bother trying to read with comprehension. Most of this (Cooper grappling with his old boyfriend) just isn’t interesting (as the author admits on the book’s last page. . .”how do I make you care, since no one cares that much about another’s love”), and to hide this, the author uses literary gimmicks like Santa and talking dogs and craters (yes, craters, big hole-in-the-ground craters) and sex fantasies of 15 year old Rob Piest (uh, Cooper tries to persuade John Wayne Gacy to let him ‘make love’ to Piest before Gacy kills him. . .yup, outsider lit at its finest!). Maybe Cooper’s other books are masterpieces. This one was so bad, I don’t want to try any of the others.