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Wolf Parts
by
Matt Bell (Goodreads Author)
A dark, fragmentary retelling of Little Red Riding Hood in forty short fictions, this edition of Wolf Parts will only be available to people who pre-order the book before its print date of March 21, 2010. The book costs $8 (with free shipping), for which you'll receive the perfect-bound minibook, plus an audiobook version that you'll be able to download immediately upon co...more
Paperback
Published
March 21st 2010
by Keyhole Press
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Matt Bell is a dirty boy who wrote a dirty little book, or novelette, or micro novel—it’s very short is what I’m getting at, and can be read in an hour or so—called Wolf Parts.
Published by the fine people of Keyhole Press, the book had a very limited run, so limited, in fact, that it quickly went out of print. I was lucky enough to win a copy from the equally fine people of PANK (thanks, Roxane!).
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Wolf Parts, and I’m kind of glad I walked into it with that unknow...more
Published by the fine people of Keyhole Press, the book had a very limited run, so limited, in fact, that it quickly went out of print. I was lucky enough to win a copy from the equally fine people of PANK (thanks, Roxane!).
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Wolf Parts, and I’m kind of glad I walked into it with that unknow...more
It was hard to read Wolf Parts without seeing the shadow of Angela Carter, who has "owned" the Red Riding Hood story for so long. Like Carter's versions of the story in The Bloody Chamber, these fragmentary retellings by Bell explore it from different angles. Power shifts from predator to prey and back again, and sexual, gender, and community identities are tried out in different combinations. Whereas Carter's versions were more narrative and linear, Bell's are a kind of Golberg Variations: repe...more
I say WOLF, but of course there are various kinds of wolves.
When I found out Bell was releasing a minibook retelling the story of Little Red Riding Hood, I knew this story would not be one for my mother's 1st grade class. Rather, Wolf Parts is a collection of fragmented flash fictions that took me to sights I wish I wouldn't have seen, but at the same time, feel like a different man for seeing. Stories, I believe, should do something to me. These flashes frighten me, enliven me, rage me, touch m...more
When I found out Bell was releasing a minibook retelling the story of Little Red Riding Hood, I knew this story would not be one for my mother's 1st grade class. Rather, Wolf Parts is a collection of fragmented flash fictions that took me to sights I wish I wouldn't have seen, but at the same time, feel like a different man for seeing. Stories, I believe, should do something to me. These flashes frighten me, enliven me, rage me, touch m...more
Explores collective storytelling and search for identity through tellings and retellings of a story we've all grown-up hearing told and told again. In some ways, it's like David Eagleman's fantastic "Sum", in that it takes one, huge, broad, undefinable thing -- in "Sum", the afterlife reflecting on life itself, in "Parts" one fable, reflecting on where fables come from and project onto, how people live with and without presuppositions and roles, and how they live up to, break free, or completely...more
(this review originally appeared at Outsider Writers Collective)
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...more
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...more
Wow. I wish I owned a print version. It's one of the coolest audiobooks I've ever heard. 40 short (and very poetic) fictions retelling the story of Little Red Riding Hood and I think it's brilliant. The only thing I found annoying about the audio was that he pronounced wolf like "woof" and I would have liked to hear the presence of the "l".
An interesting take on the Little Red Riding Hood story. There are some great pages in here but I wanted it to go a little further, get a little darker. Matt's prolific though and he's bound to kick serious ass sooner than later.
Enjoyed what Matt Bell did with language as he assimilates the many versions and interpretations into his own shapeshifting version of the Little Red Riding Hood tale.
Listened to the audiobook again the other day. The sentences are all so clear, and such a rhythm.
holyshitwow
there was a girl inside of a girl inside of a girl.... i wish i owned a copy in print, i've never held a book in sound only before. how the pages have arranged themselves in me. a handful of bright, slick intestines. a mouthful of a man who is also a wolf. dark triangles of hair. fistfuls of flowers, of fur. i can taste him tasting her under and over the hood...
Similar to Bell's killer novella The Collectors, this is a story about compulsions, and despite the focus on Little Red Riding Hood, it's specifically about the sexual and arguably violent compulsions of men and how these compulsions not only warp men, but force women to react and mold themselves to these compulsions.
I love books you can read in one big gulp. Matt Bell offers a cubist re-telling of the Red Riding Hood tale, amplifying its dread and delving into some of its latent symbolism and sexuality. You, the reader, have the freedom to choose the version(s) you want. I could have read versions and versions more.
May 01, 2010
Kevin Fanning
added it
Matt cuts away at what you think you know about the Little Red Riding Hood story, trims it back to its roots, and then grows it out in new directions, adding to it, reshaping it. Dark and creepy and fun. Looking forward to his next book.
May 20, 2013
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Matt Bell is the author of How They Were Found, a collection of fiction from Keyhole Press. His fiction has been anthologized in Best American Mystery Stories 2010 and Best American Fantasy 2. He is also the editor of The Collagist and can be found online at www.mdbell.com.
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