Consumed
By (Author) David Cronenberg
HarperCollins Publishers
Fourth Estate Ltd
24th August 2015
27th August 2015
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
813.6
Paperback
288
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 23mm
260g
The debut novel by the iconic film director.
Stylish and tech-obsessed, Naomi and Nathan are lovers and competitors. Nomadic freelancers in pursuit of sensation and depravity in the social media age, they encounter each other only in airport hotels and browser windows.
Naomi is drawn to the headlines surrounding Clestine and Aristide Arosteguy, Marxist philosophers and sexual libertines. Clestine has been found dead and mutilated in her Paris apartment. Aristide, suspected of the killing, has disappeared. Her interest aroused, Naomi sets off in search of the truth about the disturbing mystery.
Nathan, meanwhile, is in Budapest photographing the work of a controversial surgeon. But after sleeping with one of his subjects, Nathan contracts a rare STD called Roiphes. Determined to meet the doctor who identified the disease, Nathan comes across Roiphes daughter, a young woman whose bizarre behaviour masks a devastating secret.
These parallel narratives become entwined in a gripping, dreamlike plot that involves 3-D printing, North Korea, the Cannes Film Festival, cancer, and, in an incredible number of varieties, sex. Consumed is an exuberant, provocative debut novel from one of the worlds leading film directors.
CONSUMED is an eye-opening dazzler. Not for the fainthearted, but for those of us who relish a trip into the shadowy depths, a must-read. Cronenberg's novel is as troubling, sinister, and as enthralling as his films Stephen King
Classic Cronenberg! Who else can tell such a frightening, thrilling, shocking story about the nexus of the spirit and the flesh CONSUMED will, well, consume you J. J. Abrams
Like a mashup of William Gibson, the king of near-future SF cool, and 1970s horror maestro James Herbert an intense and surreal modern vision of the thousand unnatural shocks that flesh is heir to Guardian
[CONSUMED] involves cannibalism, perversity and philosophy, as though Jean-Paul Sartre were dining with Hannibal Lecter It is compelling in its scabrous transgression, daring in its tackling of taboos such as geriatric sex Youve got to hand it to Cronenberg at 71 he has written a first novel as provocative and neo-adolescent as they come The Times
'An astonishing, seamless continuation of what I call his peerless novelistic film oeuvres. With CONSUMED, he has become the definitive heir, not just of Kafka and Borges, but of Cronenberg himself' Bruce Wagner
Delicious, and no end of wicked fun Independent
Cronenbergs first novel is so good, he should ditch his day job There is more than enough body horror in CONSUMED to satisfy fans of Cronenbergs The Fly or Videodrome but at its core is a nuanced and moving examination of what it means to age, to become ill and to die in a rampantly technologised age. CONSUMED may not be to everyones taste but, for connoisseurs of Burroughs, Ballard and DeLillo, its a delightful and unexpected smorgasbord New Statesman
Aficionados of Cronebergs cinematic work will not be surprised to find a lot of exquisitely detailed, voyeuristic body-horror Guardian
David Cronenberg lives in Canada. His body of work as a film director Shivers, Rabid, Fast Company, The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Crash, eXistenz, The Dead Zone, M. Butterfly, Spider, A History of Violence and Eastern Promises has received tremendous critical praise and numerous awards. He is an Officer in France's Order of Arts and Letters and an Officer in the Order of Canada. In 1999, he was President of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival.