Cursed Bread: Desire, Delusion and The Effects of Being Sexually Denied
Sophie Macintosh's stunning third novel makes bread even sexier than I already find it.
A repressed baker, a mysterious stranger and his darkly hypnotic wife, a village still reeling from the war and women’s salacious gossip.
Sophie Macintosh’s third novel has all the makings of a great smut story but instead of a cheap and cheerful sexual affair, she delivers a truly haunting and seductive story of repression, denial and the delusions that float in-between fantasy and reality.
Elodie is the local bakers wife in a sleepy little French village that is still struggling with the after-effects of the second world war.
Her life is a predictable blur of washing dirty garments with the other wives, collecting everyone’s secrets and selling her husbands much sought-after bread and pastries.
Her boredom is only made worse by her fevered need to experience some kind of affection from her husband, who almost recoils from her attempts to seduce him.
With the arrival of an American ambassador and his darkly seductive wife Violet, Elodie finds herself caught in the middle of their own game of lust and power, feeling herself sink into the potential of all her desires come true.
How Desire and Delusion Fuel Eachothers Existence
Macintosh’s entire novel is just brimming with sexual tension. Its metaphorical cup isn’t just spilling over but it has flooded the room in which it is held and I would have happily drowned in all of its carnal pleasure.
Mackintosh takes a handful of characters and positions them in a way that explores what desire really means and how it can manifest when unmet.
Elodie is every bit the repressed woman and it is the result of her husbands refusal to meet her needs for affection and sexual touch that leads her to this bizarre and dangerous game of seduction with Violet and the ambassador.
Macintosh explores how the repression of female sexuality can lead to the delusions that live in the strange realm between fantasy and reality and this is something I think we can see reflected in other literary texts as well as modern popular culture.
Elodie’s inability to explore her sexuality within her marriage is stifling her and she begins to feel that same sense of loss and tedium in other areas of her life.
However, her budding relationship with Violet and the ambassador allows her to explore the desires she has been forced to bury within herself and we see how just the suggestion of her sexual needs being met allows her to give in to thoughts and acts that spill into sadomasochist territory.
Elodie begins to live a secret life, both in reality and her fantasies, and as she spends more time with Violet, her fetishism over humiliation and submissiveness become the driving force behind her motivations and sexual imaginations.
Elodie is also conflicted in her feelings towards Violet. She craves Violet and the life she lives. Violet’s wild heart and beauty leads Elodie to softly trace the shape of her waist or tenderly kiss her naked shoulder in a way that suggests not only sexual desire, but a sisterly affection also.
Yet Elodie is jealous of Violet and the ways in which the ambassador so blatantly lusts after his wife. One might argue that the ambassador himself is irrelevant, he is merely a reminder to Elodie that a man should desire his wife and Violet’s mere existence mocks Elodie’s sexless life.
The ambassador becomes simply a manifestation of what Elodie wants the most; to be desired, which she argues is the truest way to be seen and known.
This need to be desired begins to overrule any sense of rationality Elodie once had. She allows herself to be engulfed by Violet and the ambassadors sexual depravity and manipulation, encouraging it and using it for her own titillation.
However, her eagerness to be wanted only fuels the parts of her that are giving into delusion and it becomes difficult for her to determine what the reality of her relationship with the pair is and how much of it is happening in her head.
It is easy for the reader to become equally wrapped up in the sexual tension and potential of the budding relationship between the characters, and Macintosh plays with the ways in which desire and delusion make for a risky but powerful force.
Chaos, Sexual Repression & Casual Poisoning
In Pont-Sainy-Esprit France 1951, more than two-hundred and fifty people were involved in a mass poisoning with seven deaths and more than fifty people being institutionalised in asylums.
While many villagers suffered from nausea, dizziness and an uncontrolled fever others suffered extreme hallucinations that caused a seven year old boy to strangle his mother and a young man to jump from his second story window.
It is widely believed that the village was poisoned with LSD laced bread and Macintosh uses this story as a springboard for her story, impressively working in her own themes to this chaotic social happening.
This infamous historical event reveals itself towards the novels ending and one might argue that the villages fate represents Elodie’s giving in to the reality of her situation and all the messy chaos it brings to her life.
For so long Elodie has been expected to repress her sexual needs due to her husbands disinterest and the expectations of her as a woman of her time.
With the reveal of Violet and the ambassadors agenda, alongside the disappointing truth behind her husbands detachment, Elodie gives herself over to the carnage that her desire and delusion has lead to; all the pain, humiliation and sexual instability.
As the village turns into bedlam, we could consider this as a depiction of Elodie’s sinking into the madness of her own fantasies, including her juxtaposing feelings of shame and sexual excitement.
This is interestingly supported by Elodie’s letters to Violet and the ways in which she has found a strange life beyond the village. One that includes the exploration of her sexuality.
Perhaps it is her giving in to all the mayhem that ensued that allowed for her escape from the life she knew but at what cost? Can Elodie ever really achieve sexual freedom when she still lives in-between fantasy and reality?
Feed Me Carbohydrates & Read Me Literature
Sophie Macintosh’s writing is always wonderfully hypnotic and darkly alluring, and Cursed Bread is no exception. It includes two of my very favourite things; bread and sex, and gives a nuanced look at the politics behind sexual repression and women’s desire.
Any piece of literature that makes me question my own knee-jerk reaction to concepts around the wants and needs of women in positions of subordination is a winner and Cursed Bread does exactly that.
Read it, love it, maybe eat a french baguette and talk to me about how it all made you feel.