Author(s): Sophie Mackintosh

Fiction | Mel M's Book Talkers

From the Booker-nominated author of The Water Cure - an eerie and erotic historical mystery about desire, memory and madness.

In 1951, still reeling in the aftermath of the deadliest war the world had ever seen, the small French town of Pont-Saint-Esprit succumbed to a mass poisoning. The poison induced hysteria, violent and euphoric hallucinations, and many deaths.

In the years before the disaster, there lived in the town a woman named Elodie. She was the baker's wife- a plain, unremarkable person who yearned to transcend her dull existence. So when a charismatic new couple arrived in town, Elodie quickly fell under their glamorous spell. Thus began a dangerous game of cat and mouse, the intoxication of the chase slowly seeping into everything - but who was the predator and on whom did they prey?

Audacious and mesmerising, Cursed Bread is a darkly gleaming tale of a town gripped by madness, envy like poison in the blood, and desire that burns and consumes.

CONSTANT READER STAFF REVIEW: MEL M

I picked this up knowing it was based on a very strange unsolved mystery: in a small village in France, in 1951, a mass poisoning occurred. Many people died and many more were committed to asylums and hospital. Leading theories suggest it was something to do with the bread and the dodgy politics of flour supply at the time. The event is referred to in French as ‘La Pain Maudit’, or Cursed Bread.

Out of this unsolved mystery Sophie Mackintosh has spun a tale of fevered eroticism and subtle psychological crises. Ultimately, the historical event fades into the background as we learn about Elodie, a frustrated and bored baker’s wife who becomes obsessed with a new arrival in town.

 This novella is definitely more of a character study than a fictional solve for the mystery, though there is a compelling theory proposed that aligns with some of the evidence!

If you perhaps watched and enjoyed the tense slow-burning 2018 thriller Lizzie with Kristen Stewart and Chloe Sevigny in the starring roles, or even Killing Eve, you will love this fevered novel of madness, desire and how the former can be born out of the latter.

Grab this one if you love the feminist psychoscapes of Samanta Schweblin, Deborah Levy, or Han Kang.