Frisk: A Novel

When Dennis is thirteen, he sees a series of photographs depicting a boy who appears to be unimaginably mutilated. While not shocked, Dennis is stunned by the mystery and power of these images, which offer a glimpse into the reality of death. Years later, Dennis meets the boy who posed for the photographs, learning that he did it out of love. Surrounded by images of violence, the celebrity of horror, news of disease, and a wasteland of sex, Dennis travels to Europe, having discovered clues about the photographs. He observes that the criminals he sees on the news, who have killed someone methodically, are free, suggesting that they know something remarkable.

This knowledge may lie within the bodies themselves. Bodies are undeniably real, and what lies within them must have something to say, even in a society that thrives on images and fantasies. An isolated windmill in Holland provides the perfect setting for Dennis to delve deeper into the nature of bodies, of which there are many, and what they conceal.

In Frisk, as in the award-winning Closer, Dennis Cooper explores the limits of our knowledge and the boundary between the body and the spirit. Frisk is a novel about the power of fantasy and faith, as well as the ecstasy and horror of being human. The body's power extends to us all, but what power do we have over it, over its appetites and satisfactions? The answer to these questions is a work of imaginative courage and clarity: a murder mystery that implicates us all and a horror story in which the monster is love.

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