'In another country or another era, Dennis Cooper's books would be circulated in secret, explosive samizdat editions that friends and fans would pass around and savor like forbidden absinthe.' --New York Times Book Review
'His work belongs to that of Poe, the Marquis de Sade, Charles Baudelaire, and Georges Bataille, other writers who argued with mortality.' -- San Francisco Chronicle
There's a stainless steel sheen to Cooper's sentences that is as admirable as anything this side of Didion. -- Salon
From the internationally acclaimed author of Ugly Man and one of 'the last literary outlaws in mainstream American fiction' (Bret Easton Ellis) comes a survey of his cultural criticism. From interviews with celebrities such as Leonard DiCaprio and Keanu Reeves; to obituaries for Kurt Cobain and River Phoenix; to writings on social issues--including the touchstone piece 'AIDS: Words from the front'; Smothered in Hugs spans three decades of journalism from Dennis Cooper.
