Rick Moody (right) selected this month's book

Colin Frangicetto, Circa Survive
It's quite suiting that you brought up comparing the story to a piece of art, Dessa. I took in Carter's words very much in the same way I would soak up a piece in a museum. I have to admit that I had a bad taste in my mouth from the war of the sexes that raged during Unbearable Lightness of Being last month and after glimpsing over Emily and Elizabeth's comments was preemptively not "pumped" to dive in. But Rick is a writer -- a damn good one at that -- and I was determined to check it out because I am sometimes of the childish mindset that great artists are great because they have absorbed other great artists' work. I was very pleasantly surprised by my experience in reading this story. I have lived in my present town for two years and have never joined the library (I buy books so I can mark them). This piece was only available to me through the library as I have been traveling by bicycle and the local store was sold out of her works. and my God how thankful I am that I went there. I'll save that for another entry or day.

I read the majority of the story on a beach.

Going back to the piece of art thing: I don't even feel an urge to deconstruct this story. It was so enjoyable on the surface that it doesn't feel necessary. at least not for someone like me. I'm not going to shed some great insight into why Angela wrote this. But I am glad she did. It had such a familiar tone, which you guys have dubbed the fairy tale aspect of it. I honestly didn't feel any of the feminist ideas previously discussed. I didn't even feel that the sexual content was that prevalent to the overall effect of the story. I enjoyed the suspense of waiting for her murderous husband to return… I enjoyed her descriptions of sex as the gross and vicious act it can be, especially involving female virginity. I absolutely loved the ridiculously impossible resolution/climax of the story because it's exactly what I was starved for after feeling nauseous during the first half of the story.

It's like a Basquiat painting or a Man Ray photograph. It's a ride. And yes there is plenty under the surface for inquiring minds but the juxtapositions, color schemes, compositions and symbols give you more than enough to be fulfilled with before even starting to question… "Why?"

Greta Salpeter, The Hush Sound
I happened to start reading the The Bloody Chamber the day after I'd finished a collection of fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm and also watched American Psycho. That night, I'd fallen asleep with mixing nightmares of Cinderella slicing her heels with a serrated knife to fit the glass slipper and scenes of Christian Bale slashing women apart after engaging in perverse sexual acts with them. That next day, I opened this collection of brilliant short stories by Angela Carter with a perfect backdrop hanging in my imagination -- a mix of innocent fantasies (a princess in a castle, beauties and beasts, talking animals, vampires) and realistic human perversion. I really enjoyed the stories and want to thank you, Rick, for the exceptional choice.

The book's focus on the depravity of sex and, more specifically, on the power a man feels when stealing (or taking) a young girl's viriginity, reminds me of a poem I read a few days ago… I don't remember the whole thing, but it was about a young man taking his young girlfriend's virginity in a dingy off-the-highway motel. They were showering afterward when a strand of red ran down her leg and he described it as being a "thread that I could pull to completely unravel her." The powerful descriptions of sex in Angela Carter's collection, mixed with the head-in-the-clouds lightness of fairy tale backdrops, was what made it so exceptional to me. It was heavy and dreamy, psychologically grounded but and imaginative and light.

More discussion highlights on page 4.