After the success of Interview with a Vampire, Anne Rice took on the nom de plume A N Roquelaure (an 18th century cloak), and returned to her erotic literary concerns of the 1960s.
Despite the fact that she only revealed her true identity in the 1990s, the Sleeping Beauty books were a huge commercial and critical success, out-selling her vampire novels. They represent an erotic reimagining of the Sleeping Beauty story, in which Beauty is awoken from her hundred-year sleep by a prince who inducts her into a realm of sexual exploration. The books are known for their sadomasochistic content (which has proved controversial) as well as their surreal, fairytale narratives.
For this month’s Mucky Book Club, we’re reading the second part of the trilogy, Beauty’s Punishment.
Mucky Book Club will take place on 14th April 2011:
– live at The Ship, Wandsworth at 7pm
– on Twitter from 7.30pm under the hashtag #muckybooks
If you can’t make it on 14th, don’t despair – read along anyway, and add your comments to the bottom of this post!
The Mucky Book Club is open to anyone who would like to take part. If you’d like to join our mailing list (so that we can send updates to you via email), please use the form below.