the crimson petal and the white book review

In Sugar, he finds the perfect lover and the ideal confidante. Seduced by her reputation, desperate to debase another, William seeks relief from the demands of his father's perfume business and his squirrelly wife. But William Rackham, ''a man with greying sideboards and an incipient triple chin,'' mucks everything up by making Sugar comfortable. Suffering and fury fuel her story of revenge. They all get their due in Sugar's novel, which she scribbles while waiting for drunken sods to come up for a visit. Who may be in trouble, though, is the Lord above (''God damn God and all His horrible filthy creation,'' she curses) and the men who leave behind shillings and their stench. Sugar has a fierce mind, and she can take care of herself just fine. But this is no damsel-in-distress type of tale. ''What makes Sugar a rarity is she'll do anything the most desperate alley-slut will do, but do it with a smile of child-like innocence,'' writes Faber. Sugar is 19, and she's been pulling up her petticoats for six years. And it doesn't take long for Sugar to sweeten the plot. The story is too rich, the subject too scintillating. One minute he strokes you (''You have come this far, why not just go a little farther?''), and the next he's taken you by the scruff of your neck and thrown you into streets that Jack the Ripper won't haunt for another 14 years. ''Let's not be coy: you were hoping I would satisfy all the desires you're too shy to name, or at least show you a good time.'' Faber, that sly dog, makes you, the reader, an intimate part of the novel's pomp and squalor. Cocky and brilliant, amused and angry, the author is rightfully earning comparisons to observer extraordinaire Charles Dickens. ''The Crimson Petal and the White,'' Michel Faber's bulging, bawdy Victorian epic, is a gloves-off kind of novel, one not to be passed along lightly to your grandmother. Whores, high society, smut-soaked streets, the polished ceilings of Royal Albert Hall.

(Entertainment Weekly) - Here's a tale of a true city.

The crimson petal and the white book review