"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.