Mag

by JAMES SOREL CAMERON

From Publishers Weekly\nSet in Britain in a vague, feudal past, this first novel reaches toward a Dickensian sensibility but fails to achieve its ambitious goals. The heroine is a mute hunchback. Born into a depraved and indifferent world, she is destined to survive every cruelty that befalls her (She can always submit: she can never surrender). Filth, pestilence, sexual nastiness and vicious inhumanity pervade this charmless tale as Mag moves through several allegorical stages to her final destination, a curiously satisfying marriage to a sadistic and psychotic hangman. Sorel-Cameron's powerful writing makes the vileness all the more vivid, but his idiosyncratic way with words yields overlong sentences abounding with phrases like fondling a great, black bottle that was as big as her head and from which she pulled mouthfuls . . . rolling it about her gums before swallowing loudly and gasping and belching as it bulged down her gullet. . . . Where Patrick Suskind's Perfume succeeds with a somewhat similar premise, Sorel-Cameron's first effort is a painful example of talent misdirected. \nCopyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. \n\nProduct Description\nA novel about the survival of a hunchback mute against appalling odds. Set in a dream world, it tells of Mag, the 16th daughter of an inn/brothel owner. Discarded and rejected because of her deformity, Mag is placed by fate in the hands of a succession of odd and dramatic characters

320 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1990