It’s here we also learn about Luke, Tran’s ex-boyfriend who’s HIV-positive and a very dangerous man. We don’t learn too much about his family life, since his father kicked him out after discovering notes between him and Luke. There, he explains he has two lives: his family life and his other life in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Tran explains he was born in Vietnam but his parents fled to the US when he was young. After the characters part ways, we learn more about them. Tran declines and says he’s going to a rave, but then explains that he is interested in Jay. Jay buys drugs off of Tran and invites him to take some photos (yeah that doesn’t sound sketchy at all). From here, Andrew steals his money and ID and buys a ticket to the US. He visits a pub, meets an American tourist, and kills him in a random bathroom. He steals one of the staff member’s cars and escapes. It’s here, while Andrew is about to go through an autopsy, is when he kills the mortuary staff and escapes.įrom here, he’s outside of the hospital in London. When the prison staff discovers his body, they transfer him to the mortuary. He slows his pulse, heartbeat, and breathing until it’s no longer there. He recently discovered he’s HIV-positive and knows he will live out the rest of his mundane existence in his jail cell. The book starts off with Andrew Compton in jail. So I’ll try and not give away spoilers in this section. That’s why I knew this was the perfect book to feature for Pride Month. The book also discussed many issues that the gay community faces, such as ostracization, marginalization, discrimination (specifically in Tran’s case, when his father kicked out him due to strict Vietnamese customs), and the HIV/AIDS virus that has corrupted the gay community and more for decades. It took me out of my own world and into someone else’s. I’m a straight cisgender female, so I loved diving into this world of sex, love, drugs, and violence in the New Orleans gay community. Many genres, but especially horror, are heteronormative. I honestly loved how the book centered around gay characters. He also considers himself a gay man who was born in a female’s body.

Brite is a transgender writer whose characters are either gay or bisexual. Since this is a special review for Pride Month, I should discuss Poppy Z. But little do they know, his ex-boyfriend, Luke, is still crazy in love with Tran - and is crazy enough to get in-between the killers’ plan. After killing a sickly junkie, they turn their attention to one young man named Tran. The two cross paths and immediately fall in love. The book centers around two serial killers: Andrew Compton and Jay Byrne. For Pride Month, I want to write a review of a book I read recently - the Exquisite Corpse book by Poppy Z.

Exquisite corpse book