title: Cursed Bread by: Mackintosh, Sophie published: 2023-04-04 read: 2023-05 preview

A book longlisted for the Women’s Prize for fiction from an author who was nominated for the Booker prize.

First, I have full compassion for anyone who does not like this book.  It’s just the main protagonist rambling about her frustration in her life, for 200 pages or so.

But for me, I loved this book.  Here she is, Elodie, in a dull marriage with the baker, his strong hands only interested in the dough, and she longing for a relationship with ‘the ambassador’s wife’. 

After that day in the shop I was sure she had decided against a friendship with me. I felt embarrassed, thinking about how I had eaten the apple with her lipstick on it, like I was a young girl swooning. But a few days later I opened the bakery to find a note pushed under the door, white paper with the dusty footprint of my husband on it, so I supposed he hadn’t read it. In compact, jagged handwriting she invited me to lunch on Friday. Only me. I was glad my husband hadn’t seen it, glad for once of his obliviousness. Later that day when it was quiet I switched our sign from Open to Closed, ran down the road and asked Josette to watch the shop for me for a couple of hours on Friday afternoon – I had to run some errands, I would pay her. It felt bracing to lie.

Her husband is too drunk to stay hard, normally.

I drew my white cotton nightdress down over my skin and laid myself in bed next to him. What would Violet do? She would run her hand all the way down his chest, she wouldn’t take no for an answer, but who would turn her down anyway? There was a queasiness in the progression of these thoughts, the inevitable comparisons between me and her, but I couldn’t stop myself moving against my hand, turning over to bury my face into the pillow, as soon as my husband’s breathing slowed into sleep. I couldn’t tell if what excited me was the image of Violet and my husband specifically, or just the idea that he might still be capable of being seduced by someone, that desire might still live in him somewhere.

But then, the ambassador being someone whom one does not understand.  Nor his wife Violet, for that matter.  Or Elodie.  Or anyone in the book.  The character development, so I would phrase it as a literary critic, is fascinating, it’s dark, it’s so depth-first that one feels the people, but does not know them.

I think that that’s what makes it so fascinating.  Elodie and Violet challenging each other, playing their erotic games, or are they, really?, and the challenge between violence, sexuality, and, well, worth.

Reason enough for me to dig into earlier books by Mackintosh.