By: Dennis Cooper

In another country or another era, Dennis Coopers 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

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 issuesincluding the touchstone piece AIDS: Words from the front; Smothered in Hugs spans three decades of journalism from Dennis Cooper.