Genre Fiction
![Sophie Mackintosh - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_sophie_mackintosh.jpg)
Cursed Bread: A Novel
From the Booker Prize–nominated author of The Water Cure comes an elegant and hypnotic new novel of obsession that centers on the real unsolved mystery of the 1951 mass poisoning of a French village.
Still reeling in the aftermath of the deadliest war the world had ever seen, the small town of Pont-Saint-Esprit collectively lost its mind. Some historians believe the mysterious illness and violent hallucinations were caused by spoiled bread; others claim it was the result of covert government testing on the local population.
In that town lived 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, the forceful ambassador and his sharp-toothed wife, Violet, Elodie was quickly drawn into their orbit. Thus began a dangerous game of cat and mouse--but who was the predator and on whom did they prey?
Audacious and mesmerizing, Cursed Bread is a fevered confession, an entry into memory's hall of mirrors, and an erotic fable of transformation. Sophie Mackintosh spins a darkly gleaming tale of a town gripped by hysteria, envy like poison in the blood, and desire that burns and consumes.
Still reeling in the aftermath of the deadliest war the world had ever seen, the small town of Pont-Saint-Esprit collectively lost its mind. Some historians believe the mysterious illness and violent hallucinations were caused by spoiled bread; others claim it was the result of covert government testing on the local population.
In that town lived 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, the forceful ambassador and his sharp-toothed wife, Violet, Elodie was quickly drawn into their orbit. Thus began a dangerous game of cat and mouse--but who was the predator and on whom did they prey?
Audacious and mesmerizing, Cursed Bread is a fevered confession, an entry into memory's hall of mirrors, and an erotic fable of transformation. Sophie Mackintosh spins a darkly gleaming tale of a town gripped by hysteria, envy like poison in the blood, and desire that burns and consumes.
Editorial Reviews
Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by LitHub
"Intoxicating, sumptuous, and savage, Cursed Bread has a gothic sensibility that is entirely original. In Mackintosh's hands, the strange, compulsive machinations of desire become luminous and ghastly all at once."
-Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun
"Vivid and shocking, written with stunning, incantatory prose, Cursed Bread is the kind of book that upends your nervous system."
-Julia May Jonas, author of Vladimir
"Cursed Bread floored me in its first page and didn't let up for the rest of its strange, hot, festering journey. It always feels like a true privilege to be allowed time with Sophie Mackintosh's brilliant mind and her third novel just confirms that she is only getting better and weirder and wilder. A knockout."
-Megan Nolan, author of Acts of Desparation
"Her writing is so sleek, the characters mysterious and yet indelible-a taut, seductive, thrilling gem of a novel."
-Olivia Sudjic, author of Sympathy and Asylum Road
"Cursed Bread is a gorgeously atmospheric and feverishly compulsive novel about amorphous longings and desires, and the hot shame of wanting more than you deserve."
-Lara Williams, author of Supper Club and The Odyssey
"Sensuous and haunted, like Madame Bovary reworked as a ghost story-an incredible book about desire, pleasure, beauty. Sophie's fiction always has a gauzy quality, filled with strange, languid images, which rise to a narrative crescendo like clues in a detective novel. She makes it look effortless."
-Jo Hamya, author of Three Rooms
"The thing I love most about this book is that even if you know the plot, there's no way to anticipate how Sophie Mackintosh handles the narrative. The sentences here are pristine, the structure is on point, the en...
"Intoxicating, sumptuous, and savage, Cursed Bread has a gothic sensibility that is entirely original. In Mackintosh's hands, the strange, compulsive machinations of desire become luminous and ghastly all at once."
-Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun
"Vivid and shocking, written with stunning, incantatory prose, Cursed Bread is the kind of book that upends your nervous system."
-Julia May Jonas, author of Vladimir
"Cursed Bread floored me in its first page and didn't let up for the rest of its strange, hot, festering journey. It always feels like a true privilege to be allowed time with Sophie Mackintosh's brilliant mind and her third novel just confirms that she is only getting better and weirder and wilder. A knockout."
-Megan Nolan, author of Acts of Desparation
"Her writing is so sleek, the characters mysterious and yet indelible-a taut, seductive, thrilling gem of a novel."
-Olivia Sudjic, author of Sympathy and Asylum Road
"Cursed Bread is a gorgeously atmospheric and feverishly compulsive novel about amorphous longings and desires, and the hot shame of wanting more than you deserve."
-Lara Williams, author of Supper Club and The Odyssey
"Sensuous and haunted, like Madame Bovary reworked as a ghost story-an incredible book about desire, pleasure, beauty. Sophie's fiction always has a gauzy quality, filled with strange, languid images, which rise to a narrative crescendo like clues in a detective novel. She makes it look effortless."
-Jo Hamya, author of Three Rooms
"The thing I love most about this book is that even if you know the plot, there's no way to anticipate how Sophie Mackintosh handles the narrative. The sentences here are pristine, the structure is on point, the en...
