A Pound of Flesh

by Susan Wright

ROC, 291pp, $14.00

This is a tale of travel and travail and was, well…nice.

The subject matter was fundamentally interesting: a woman takes on a mission to cleanse the lands of sexual salves and the pleasure houses they inhabit. Once a sexual slave herself (and whose story was charted in the previous novel by Wright “To Serve and Submit”), she joins up with the man who had once been her sexual master. The two go out and about the land to eventually end up in/at the heart of the slave trade.

For a book dealing with sexual bondage, this was pretty mild. The cover is more exciting than the story.

Wright takes the European world as we know it and slightly changes the names of things: Veneto for Venice, Kristna for Christ, pelegrini for pilgrims, a haushold for household, Frankish lands for well, Frankish lands. And calling the leader of Veneto the doj (i.e. Doge.) Things like that. This is a small pet peeve of mine. Either name them something completely different or call Venice Venice and just set the story in an alternate world history. Lots of novelists do it. But tweaking the names slightly feels lazy and/or timid.

And the story, though dealing with material fraught with implications, is sort of a straight line with no real highs or lows, just a few potholes.

I wanted to feel more outrage or more involvement with the two lead characters, but they were kind of bland and though the situations they got involved in were dramatic they weren’t compelling. I felt a bit of distance in the storytelling.

And I wanted more angst and drama. - Sue Martin