Description

Roll up, roll up, ladies and gents, boys and girls! Don’t miss your chance to see the sensation of the season: the Starving Bride! This plucky lass has pledged to fast for forty days and forty nights, shut inside a glass casket, in the company of a genuine lion! Come at the start of your holiday, then come for another look at the end! See her shrink before your very eyes!

England, the near future. Dumped by her boyfriend, fired from her job and estranged from her parents, Hazel Whitlock signs up for a sideshow act in Blackpool. The seaside resort has revived all the cancelled old favourites: the Wonder Midgets, Britain’s Fattest Boy, the South Sea Cannibals . . . and the Starving Bride. On display in the iconic Blackpool Tower, with a ravenous lion prowling the enclosure, Hazel must lie in silence while spectators view her and pass judgement on her body. Time compresses and warps in this strange space, and the past returns to Hazel with full and shocking force. As the days tick down and the Showman entices ever larger crowds through the door, Hazel’s old friend Gilda becomes increasingly worried for her welfare. Councillor Frank Marsh, meanwhile, investigating the stability of the Tower, is alarmed at his findings – but his concerns fall on deaf ears.

Set against a backdrop of food shortages, rising sea levels and extreme weather events, The Starving Bride considers our insatiable appetite for the emaciated female form, and the dangers of ignoring the warning signs of catastrophe.

Publisher Review

A compelling story that raises profound questions not only about the power of the state to dehumanise parts of our society but about our complicity in that power . . . The Book of Guilt is written with insight and brio, deftly balancing darkness and light, depth and pace * Guardian *