Profile Books Ltd Closer (4, 2023) | Dennis Cooper

With an introduction by Lynne Tillman 'The last literary outlaw in mainstream American fiction' Bret Easton Ellis Physically beautiful and strangely passive, George Miles attracts his fellow students' attention, like a wallet lying on the street. One after another, his teenage friends rifle through George, ransacking him for love, secrets or anything else they can plausibly extract. Closer follows the subterranean connections that drag George into the arms of men like John, an artist who drains his portraits of humanity in order to find what lies beneath; Alex, fascinated by splatter films and pornography; and Steve, an underground entrepreneur who turns his parents' garage into a nightclub. Boys and men pass George from hand to hand, fascinated by the nightmarish intensity of his detachment, but soon he will be confronted by desires he may find harder to endure. Closer is an unflinching exploration of the very limits of experience. Still shocking after more than two decades, here is a provocative classic that assaults the senses as it engages the mind.