Cursed Bread
Longlisted for the Women's Prize
Published on 11. January 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
192 pages
978-0-241-99390-3 (ISBN)
Description
GRANTA BEST OF YOUNG BRITISH NOVELISTS
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2023
LONGLISTED FOR THE NOTA BENE PRIZE 2024
From the Booker Prize-nominated author of The Water Cure comes a chilling new feminist fable based on the true story of an unsolved mystery . . .
'A shimmering fever-dream of a novel' Telegraph
Spring, 1951. Four people meet in a small French town: the baker and his wife; the ambassador and his wife. Two belong to the town, two are outsiders.
Some time later, strange things start happening. Horses drop dead in the fields. Children grow wild and unbiddable. Ghosts are sighted after dark. Someone is playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse - but who is the predator and who their prey?
Audacious and mesmerizing, Cursed Bread is a darkly erotic mystery about a town gripped by madness, envy like poison in the blood, and desire that burns and consumes.
'A dreamy sapphic romp' The Times
'Gauzy [and] gripping, a quietly rich maturation of Mackintosh's skill' Guardian
The Spectator Book of the Year 2023
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2023
LONGLISTED FOR THE NOTA BENE PRIZE 2024
From the Booker Prize-nominated author of The Water Cure comes a chilling new feminist fable based on the true story of an unsolved mystery . . .
'A shimmering fever-dream of a novel' Telegraph
Spring, 1951. Four people meet in a small French town: the baker and his wife; the ambassador and his wife. Two belong to the town, two are outsiders.
Some time later, strange things start happening. Horses drop dead in the fields. Children grow wild and unbiddable. Ghosts are sighted after dark. Someone is playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse - but who is the predator and who their prey?
Audacious and mesmerizing, Cursed Bread is a darkly erotic mystery about a town gripped by madness, envy like poison in the blood, and desire that burns and consumes.
'A dreamy sapphic romp' The Times
'Gauzy [and] gripping, a quietly rich maturation of Mackintosh's skill' Guardian
The Spectator Book of the Year 2023
Reviews / Votes
A shimmering fever-dream of a novel, teasing the reader [..] while finding a fresh narrative framework for the relationship between monotonous small-town life and repressed female desire. Cursed Bread contains more riches than many a novel twice its length * Telegraph * A quietly rich maturation of Mackintosh's skill... This is a book about the power desire and greed exert over reality and memory... Mackintosh has entered a brilliant new stage of writing * Guardian * Nimble, terrifying... Mackintosh is a wonderful prose stylist and she uses many of the resources that served her well in her Booker prize-nominated debut, The Water Cure: the slow unravelling of sanity, the isolated and mysterious setting, that feeling of panting, crawling, unfulfilled desire... A dreamy sapphic romp * The Times * Remarkable, sensuous, thrillingly written . . . Mackintosh's evocation of desire is so tangible that you can smell the aroma of illicit sex * Observer * A richly atmospheric tale of greed, desire and vainglorious ambition, the plot centres around Elodie, wife of the village baker, who projects the wants and desires from her own unfulfilling marriage onto the arrival of two glamorous newcomers to the village... Shimmering with an almost hallucinatory quality throughout, closing its pages at The End feels like waking up from a fever dream. Fascinating. * Marie Claire * A sun-scorched fever dream . . . Mackintosh's top-notch phrasemaking and knack for forming uncanny images generate a baleful atmosphere of lust and dread in this splendidly peculiar tale * Daily Mail * Sensual, luminous, transcendent... This tale of obsession, desire and betrayal has a timeless, dreamlike quality. It confirms Mackintosh as one of our finest young writers * The Bookseller, Editor's Choice * As in her previous novels, Mackintosh's prose is eerie but minimalist - dreamlike yet grounded. Her style elevates plot to the status of fable or allegory without resorting to straightforward metaphor. This a story shrouded in mist, thick with meaning * New Statesman * This novel is a masterclass in observation, of fracturing personalities but also in its tight and nuanced portrait of the rituals and minutiae of small-town life. Afterwards, you'll want to devour it all over again * Independent * Mackintosh's dark imagination and precision as a prose stylist combine to devastating effect, as unsettling as it is unpredictable * Financial Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 131 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
142 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-99390-3 (9780241993903)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
03/2023
Penguin Books Ltd
€10.99
Available for download
Person
Sophie Mackintosh is the author of four novels, including The Water Cure and Cursed Bread. She has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Women's Prize, has won a Betty Trask Award, and has been selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. She has been published in Granta, The White Review and TANK magazine among others. Her new novel, Permanence, will be published in April 2026.