A Very Ambitious Magician: Dennis Cooper Interviewed
The main character in Permanent Green Light, doesn’t intentionally commit suicide. That’s not his interest or goal. Others around him do, and he studies those suicides for his project. He wants instead to disappear in a way that has the most spectacular effect on the world that’s possible. He decides that his death is the way to achieve maximum impact, and his goal is to die without triggering any conventional, personal reaction to death, and to his death in particular. He’s trying to create a death/disappearance that erases him entirely and just uses the natural, inherent impact that suicide has as a powerful effect. He doesn’t long to die. He’s more like a very ambitious magician, I think.
Chris Kelso interviews Dennis Cooper.