I'm so excited! THE BLOODY CHAMBER has been re-issued in paperback. My twenty-five-year-old copy is falling apart, so I'm pleased to be able to get a fresh one. I read and re-read and re-re-read this book while I was working on THE DIARIES OF THE FAMILY DRACUL in hopes that its brilliant, rich Victorian prose would inspire my paler efforts.
THE BLOODY CHAMBER, a feminist re-working of The Brothers Grimm's Fairy Tales, is the work of the late, dazzlingly talented Angela Carter. Carter dabbles with language the way da Vinci dabbled with paint. The story "The Bloody Chamber," for which the collection is named (and which is my favorite), is Carter's version of the tale of Bluebeard.
I recommend anything by Carter, whose writing tends toward the fantastic. THE INFERNAL DESIRE MACHINES OF DOCTOR HOFFMAN and NIGHTS AT THE CIRCUS are two of my favorites.
