Matt Bell’s Wolf Parts

I’m going to try something different with this review. I often find that an author’s own words, perhaps selectively chosen, are a better summation of a text than any review. However, I do understand that the point of a review isn’t merely in summary, but is meant to judge a book as well. Here, I will give a bit of both modes, though with a heavier weight on quotes taken from the text. Here is my first “Mostly Quotes Review.” Let me know what you think.

Wolf Parts is vicious fairy tale excursions:

Pg. 7: “…she laid across the stones and, with the knife her mother had given her, gutted herself, quickly, left to right. She cried out in wonder at the bright worlds she found hidden within herself…”

Wolf Parts gives metaphor to the ambiguity of adolescence, turning the cautionary tale of “Little Red Riding Hood” into a predatory one:

Pg 14: “The wolf’s breath smelled of chalk, and his paws were covered in flour. It wasn’t enough to trick the girl, but she allowed herself to pretend to be fooled. She opened her cloak and invited him in, so that he might do what he came to do.”

Wolf Parts turns the morality lessons of our established fairy tale and turns it inside out, sometimes literally:

Pg 15: “From inside the wolf’s stomach the grandmother could only hear every third or fourth word her granddaughter spoke…She bit down hard, first on lung and heart, then indiscriminately, casting about in a great gnashing, devouring all she could until the wolf she was inside was also inside her…”

Visit:
Keyhole Press (the publisher)
Matt Bell (the author)

Purchase:
(sorry, you can’t buy this book. It was only released in limited pre-order fashion. So why this review? Because you should all know Matt Bell)

Caleb J. Ross

Caleb J. Ross has been published widely, both online and in print. He graduated with a degree in English Lit and a minor in creative writing from Emporia State University in 2005. He is the author of Charactered Pieces: stories (OW Press), Stranger Will: a novel (Otherworld Publications, 2011), As a Machine and Parts (Aqueous Books, 2011) and, I Didn’t Mean to Be Kevin: a novel (Black Coffee Press, 2011).

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