In the Cut

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Nola Lopez (Jacket photograph) and Lulu Sylbert (A. [8], 179, [5] pages. Signed by the author on the title page. Name in ink on fep. Susanna Moore (born December 9, 1945) is an American writer and teacher. Moore worked as a model and script reader in Los Angeles and New York City before beginning her career as a writer. Her first novel, My Old Sweetheart, published in 1982, earned a PEN Hemingway nomination, and won the Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She followed this with The Whiteness of Bones in 1989, and her third novel, Sleeping Beauties, in 1993. All three of these novels were set in Hawaii and charted dysfunctional family relationships. Moore gained particular critical notice for her fourth novel, In the Cut (1995), which marked a departure from her previous works in both setting and content, concerning a New York City teacher who has a sexual affair with a detective investigating violent murders and dismemberments in her neighborhood. It was adapted into a 2003 feature film of the same name by director Jane Campion. In 1999, she received the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. A stunning, erotic thriller by the bestselling author of Whiteness of Bones. Following the gruesome murder of a young woman in her neighborhood, a self-determined woman living in New York City--as if to test the limits of her own safety--propels herself into an impossibly risky sexual liaison. Soon she grows increasingly wary about the motives of every man with whom she has contact--and about her own. Derived from a Kirkus review: Moore's latest ought to come with a warning label for unwary fans of Sleeping Beauties and her earlier works. There's nothing beautiful about this one, and you won't be doing much sleeping once you've sampled its fare of mutilation, decapitation, and cold-hearted sex. The narrator is a woman who lives in New York City and teaches creative writing to college freshmen. Her name may be Franny, one character calls her that twice, but it's never quite acknowledged or made clear. One night, in a bar, this teacher opens the wrong door, searching for a bathroom, and witnesses a red-haired woman's technique: the way she moves her head ``with a dipping motion,'' the noise her mouth makes; the man's black socks, his unshined shoes, the tattoo of a playing card on his wrist. The only thing she manages not to see is the man's face, which turns out to be a fateful omission when the red-haired woman is found murdered (well, not just murdered, nobody in this book is simply murdered, she's ``disarticulated,'' or pulled apart, joint by joint). The teacher is unwillingly caught up now in a drama that involves a serial killer, more gruesome death and dismemberment, and plenty of sex along the way, in every position, clinically detailed, with handcuffs or without. Where all this leads to is a horrific ending involving razors, torture, and the lingering smell of blood.