Poppy Z. Brite

Photo of Poppy Z. Brite

Poppy Z. Brite (born Melissa Ann Brite on May 25, 1967) is an American author born in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Literary history

Early in Brite's career, she was best known for writing gothic and horror novels and short stories. Her trademarks have included using gay men as main characters, graphic sexual descriptions in the works, and an often wry treatment of gruesome events. Some of her better known novels include Lost Souls (1992), Drawing Blood (originally titled Birdland)(1993), and Exquisite Corpse (1996); she has also released short fiction collections: Swamp Foetus (also published as Wormwood, 1993), Are You Loathsome Tonight? (also published as Self-Made Man, 1998), Wrong Things (with Caitlin R. Kiernan, 2001), and The Devil You Know (2003). She has also written a biography about singer Courtney Love (1996), which was officially "unauthorized" but is widely known to have been done at Love's suggestion and with her cooperation.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s Brite has moved away from horror fiction and gothic themes while still writing about gay characters. Her critically acclaimed Liquor novels -- Liquor (2004), Prime (2005), and Soul Kitchen (2006) -- are dark comedies set in the New Orleans restaurant world.The Value of X (2002) depicts the beginning of the careers of the protagonists of the Liquor series--Gary "G-Man" Stubbs and John "Rickey" Rickey; other stories, including several in her most recent collection The Devil You Know and the novella D*U*C*K, chronicle events in the lives of the extended Stubbs family, a Catholic clan whose roots are sunk deep in the traditional culture of New Orleans. Brite hopes to eventually write three more novels in the Liquor series, tentatively titled Dead Shrimp Blues, Hurricane Stew, and Double Shot. However, in late 2006 she severed her relationship with Three Rivers Press, the trade paperback division of Random House that published the first three Liquor novels, and is currently taking a hiatus from fiction writing. She has described Antediluvian Tales, a short story collection to be published by Subterranean Press in November 2007, as "if not my last book ever, then my last one for some time." She is still writing short nonfiction pieces, including guest editorials for the New Orleans Times-Picayune and a food article for Chile Pepper Magazine.

One interesting and popular aspect of Brite's work is her use of recurring characters in works that are not necessarily "series" or "sequels": the friends/bandmates Steve and Ghost and the residents who interact with them in the fictional town of Missing Mile, North Carolina (Lost Souls, "Angels," "How to Get Ahead in New York," "America," "The Rest of the Wrong Thing"); her fluidly gendered alter ego Dr. Brite, the coroner of New Orleans ("Monday's Special," "O Death, Where Is Thy Spatula?", "Marisol," "Crown of Thorns," "Wound Man and Horned Melon Go to Hell"); and most recently longtime companions/chefs Rickey and G-man (The Value of X, Liquor, Prime, Soul Kitchen, D*U*C*K, numerous short stories). About her fondness for revisiting characters, Brite has said, "If I really get obsessed with a character or set of characters, it's usually not enough for me to write about them once; I like to revisit them over the course of time, at different periods in their lives, learning new things about them, getting to know them better and better over the course of several stories." Of her various recurring characters, Brite has stated that she is finished writing about Steve and Ghost and suspects she may be done with Dr. Brite as well. She plans to continue writing about Rickey, G-man, and the Stubbs family.

Brite has often stated that, while she will allow some of her work to be optioned for film under the right circumstances, she has little interest in movies and is not overly eager to see her work filmed. In 1999, her short story "The Sixth Sentinel" (filmed as "The Dream Sentinel") comprised one segment of episode 209 of The Hunger, a short-lived horror anthology series on Showtime. Of all her books, only Exquisite Corpse is currently under option, by producer Simon Rumley.

A critical essay on Brite's fiction appears in The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) by S. T. Joshi.

Personal life

Born a biological female, Brite has written and talked much about her gender dysphoria/gender identity issues. She self-identifies almost completely as male rather than female but makes no attempt to dress or appear male and does not expect to be referred to as "he".^[1] Brite is comfortable with the term "non-operative transsexual".

She lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Athens, Georgia prior to returning to New Orleans in 1993. She loves UNC basketball and is a sometime season ticket holder for the NBA, but she saves her greatest affection for her hometown football team, the New Orleans Saints.

Brite and husband Chris DeBarr, a chef, run a de facto cat rescue and have, at any given time, between fifteen and twenty cats. Photos of the various felines are available on the "Cats" page of Brite's website. They have been known to have a few dogs and perhaps a snake as well in the menagerie.

During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Brite at first opted to stay at home, but she eventually left New Orleans and relocated 80 miles away to her mother's home in Mississippi. She used her blog to update her fans regarding the situation, including the unknown status of her house and many of her pets,^[2] and in October 2005 became one of the first 70,000 New Orleanians to begin repopulating the city.

In the following months, Brite has been an outspoken and sometimes harsh critic of those who are leaving New Orleans for good. She was quoted in the New York Times and elsewhere as saying, in reference to those considering leaving, "If you’re ever lucky enough to belong somewhere, if a place takes you in and you take it into yourself, you don't desert it just because it can kill you. There are things more valuable than life."^[3]

Bibliography

Novels and novellas

Lost Souls (1992)
Drawing Blood (1993)
Exquisite Corpse (1996)
The Crow: The Lazarus Heart (1998)
Plastic Jesus (novella - 2000)
The Value of X (2002)
Liquor (2004)
Triads (with Christa Faust - 2004)
Prime (2005)
Soul Kitchen (2006)
D*U*C*K (novella - 2007)

Short story collections

Wormwood (also published in limited edition and in the UK as Swamp Foetus - 1993)
Are You Loathsome Tonight? (also published in the UK as Self-Made Man - 1998)
Wrong Things (with Caitlin R. Kiernan - 2001)
The Devil You Know (2003)
Antediluvian Tales (forthcoming in 2007)

Anthologies (as editor)

Love in Vein
Twice Bitten (Love in Vein II)

Short stories

n.b. these were originally published as Chapbooks

"R.I.P." (1998)
"The Seed of Lost Souls" (1999)
"Stay Awake" (2000)
"Lantern Marsh" (2000) (first published in October Dreams)
"Would You?" (2000)
"Pansu" (2001)
"Con Party at Hotel California" (2002)
"The Feast of St. Rosalie" (2003)
"Used Stories" (2004)
"Crown of Thorns" (2005)
"Liquor for Christmas" (2007)

Nonfiction

Courtney Love: The Real Story (biography, 1997)
Guilty But Insane (essays, 2001)

Uncollected short fiction

The Freaks (juvenilia) (The Spook #12, 2002; also appears on Brite's website along with other early/unpublished fiction)
Fuck It, We're Going To Jamaica! (webzine Necromantic; also appears on Brite's website)
The Curious Case of Miss Violet Stone (1894) (co-written with David Ferguson; Shadows over Baker Street, 2003; Ballantine Books)
Wandering the Borderlands (Masques V, 2006; Gauntlet Press)

Notes

^ See Brite's LiveJournal, especially the August 22, 2003 entry
^ Ivry, Bob. "As storm raged, stalwart bloggers stayed at keyboards". The Standard Times. (August 31, 2005)
^ For text of entire speech, originally given at 2006's Banned Books Night, see Brite's journal entry for September 25, 2006.

Interviews

External links

Works by Poppy Z. Brite
Novels and novellas:	Lost Souls • Drawing Blood • Exquisite Corpse • The Lazarus Heart • Plastic Jesus • The Value of X • Liquor • Triads • Prime • Soul Kitchen • DUCK*
Short story collections:	Wormwood • Are You Loathsome Tonight? • Wrong Things • The Devil You Know • Antediluvian Tales
Short stories:	R.I.P. • The Seed of Lost Souls • Stay Awake • Would You? • Pansu • Con Party at Hotel California • The Feast of St. Rosalie • Used Stories • Crown of Thorns
Non fiction:	Courtney Love: The Real Story • Guilty But Insane

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