In the Cut

Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: This novel reminded me of LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR. The protagonist is another teacher, only this time she teaches creative writing to ghetto youth. Early on in the book, a young red-headed woman is brutally murdered. Frannie, the protagonist, is almost an eye witness as shortly before the murder, Frannie observes this same woman giving head to a man she thinks is a homicide detective named Malloy. Much as with the GOODBAR character, Frannie seems to be courting disaster, as not long after she's having sex with Malloy in the Captain's office at the precinct station. Susanna Moore keeps you wondering, though, since Frannie has all sorts of strange friends. There is Cornelius, one of her students, whom she invites back to her apartment. There's John Graham, a medical student, who's
been seeing a shrink and having blackouts. Any of them could snap at any moment.

Susanna Moore is not at all inhibited when describing sexual encounters between Frannie and Malone. You could even argue that this book is more about female gratification than it is about serial killings. Frannie tells the story in first person, hence the writing sounds more like a journal than traditional narrative. There are few transitions between scenes; Moore cuts
from scene to scene as in a movie.

Frannie is also working on a slang dictionary and Moore inserts many of these interesting idioms into the narrative. A "hamster," for instance, is a black person. "Broccoli" is pubic hair. "To lash" is to urinate. These entries generally concern sex, racism, and homicide detective lingo. The
implication is that working homicide does something to a man's soul.
The ending is absolutely riveting. As usual I finished at two in the morning and was not able to get back to sleep! Since Moore breaks writing convention, you will not be able to predict the ending. As a matter of fact, my first reaction was, "NO FAIR!"

Rating:
Summary: Irony is the spine of Moore¿s odyssey
Review: You don't have to go further than two paragraphs in Suzanna Moore's 'In The Cut' to understand that the whole novel is about irony. When you reach the end, you'll understand that she was probably kidding with you. The whole book is to tell 'irony' from 'reality' and 'sarcasm'. But all that is there, in the very first page.

Written in the first person we meet Franny, a NYU English professor, who embarks in a sexual self-discovery journey. She is a free spirited person who doesn't like to be attached to anyone. After a brutal murder her in neighborhood she meets officer Malloy. They end up clicking and having wild sex. While on the one hand, her life seems to be getting exciting, on the other, it is becoming dangerous. More similar crimes happen in the town, she can be a potential victim, and, the worst part, she is suspicious that Malloy is involved in the crimes.

Moore needs only a couple of pages to set the mood for the novel: it is dark --very dark -- and inhibited. It is a sexual thriller with many hot scenes and not so many thrills, but that's not a problem. The first time I read this novel, three years ago, I hated it with all the strength I could. Now, I can't say I loved it, but certainly I had a difference response to the book.

In the second time I wasn't so surprised when the narrative abruptly stopped for Franny and Malloy to have their wild intercourse. Moreover, I wasn't so so so shocked with the disturbing end. I still can't accept such a thing --as that extreme act of violence-- but I could come to terms with that being the end of Franny's narrative. I could even appreciate the last line and all the irony in that.

Moore seems to know what she writes about, and what the reader is expecting from her book. The novel is a self-discovery odyssey of a woman who thought she knew about relationships. Bearing that in mind, we can't expect much from the book. It is a late coming-of-age tale. I couldn't agree more with some reviewers that say that 'In the Cut' has a shallow plot. It is indeed, and if you don't mind much about it, you can draw yourself into the book. It is a quick read, but not for everyone, the graphic images and violence shock a lot.

Rating:
Summary: An Erotic thriller that isn't either- just a brilliant book
Review: The eroticism and the thrills are in the mind of the pathetic protagonist. Fannie is fascinated with words and the romance of poetry. She collects slang and is enthralled by it, but does not undertand the human struggles with class and racism that produce them; that the artifacts she collects are from the experiences of people who are very different from her and refer to experiences she has never had, cultural property of people who are from worlds that can be very dangerous and hard.

Puns are verbal forms of sadism and dominate the "wit" of Moore's book. Moore has filled the book with LitCrit allusions to ideas about words few people other than academics and propagandists rarely care about --- to our peril.

Fannie uses words to separate herself from the reality of her misaerrble world and pathetic life and uses tehm as life jackets as she allows herself to sink into mild paranoia, into playing with people whose are emotions are too raw to tolerate her self-absorbed experimentation with temptation and desire, other aspects of herslf she does not understand. The book is terryifying. IMHO, it is not an entertainment but a cautionary tale with serious implications.

Rating:
Summary: riveting
Review: I picked up this book after reading a book/movie comparison-review and all I can say is what a shame that the movie bombed because now all these people will never know the thrill ride that this book is. It reminded me of Silence of the Lambs in some ways -- creepy and completely riveting, a total page turner. And for any woman who's ever been involved with a "Malloy" in real life, boy does Moore get it right! The mood, the intesity, the sexiness of it -- if you've been there, it will totally resonate with you. This book makes me want more Moore.

Rating:
Summary: In the cut - certainly doesn't make the "cut"
Review: This book is certainly far from an "erotic thriller" as it seems to billed. i was left confused and disappointed...where were the thrills? A few basic sex scenes fail to make the grade as "erotic" .... writing is choppy and jumps all over the place, making it difficult to know what situation the characters are in.

Don't waste your time on this one

Rating:
Summary: Unpleasant to say the least
Review: Despite being warned, I gave this book my time. And what a waste of time it was. This book was the worst book I have ever read. The writing style was jumpy and choppy. The choppiness of the writing made it difficult to follow. The ending just creeped me out. No wonder the movie bombed - even with Meg Ryan. And why would an actress like Meg Ryan want to be involved in such a dark, yuck, story? Warning! This is very sick stuff and not at all sexy or erotic. I hope to never again read about a murderer who likes to cut the nipples off his victims to save as "souvenirs" and all sorts of other unpleasant crap. This book was CRAP.

Rating:
Summary: Great writing--plot has problems
Review: I loved Moore's writing and others here have done a great job describing it so I won't try to repeat! The plot is forced at times. The ending is completely forced as are the last 4 lines which made me laugh more than anything. I feel like she just never got the plot to work and then didn't know how to end the story. And the end seemed unnecessarily gory.

But the writing is so excellent it carries you through.

Rating:
Summary: Today's "Looking for Mr. Goodbar"
Review: I was curious about this book when the movie was released and wondered if it would be tastefully done. I expected the story to be flashy, shallow and exploitative. Instead, it is shocking, edgy, vaguely threatening. And a compulsive page -turner.

A thirty-five-year-old professor of creative writing, Frannie works with inner-city students, lives in a bohemian neighborhood in Manhattan and loves language, spending hours considering the uses of cultural slang. She even compiles a dictionary of common street phrases and their meanings. Frannie has an aura of vulnerability wherever she goes, in her neighborhood, the city streets and the clubs she frequents.

Almost unconsciously putting herself at risk, perhaps in rebellion, Frannie is so involved in her writer's world that she ignores any real danger. When first she sees Detective Malloy, in a club, he is engaged in an intimate act with a woman, a woman who later turns up dead, murdered. From their first encounter, there is an immediate and powerful physical attraction between Frannie and Detective Malloy, undeniably sexual. As the romantic interest, Malloy is irresistible: the cop with a roving eye, every woman's fantasy of the tough guy with a badge and a way with the ladies.

Franny isn't exactly looking for Mr. Goodbar, taking those kinds of risks, but is attractive and accessible, her casual insouciance a turn-on. She senses danger around the edges of her vision, but poor eyesight allows Frannie a kind of distance from reality. This woman strides through life like Holly GoLightly in Hell's Kitchen, Alice fallen through the looking glass into Bosch's nightmare world. After an attack on a dark street late at night, Frannie decides it is wise to be more circumspect. Such precautions are well intended, but too late: the inevitable is already set in motion. The suspense escalates, as does Malloy's quasi-deviant sexual seduction.

The scenes in the detective squad are pitch perfect, with believable characters and realistic dialog. As Frannie finally acknowledges her fear, also recognizing her conflicted feelings for Malloy, the scenes fast forward, blinking on and off, black and white...and red. With palpable menace, there is a shocking climax. This is an erotic and intense mystery, with uninhibited sexuality (think "9 and ½ Weeks"), a race toward one of the most horrific endings I have read in a while. Not to be missed. Luan Gaines/2003.

Rating:
Summary: Not much to redeem this unpleasant story
Review: In The Cut was a quick read. It kept me turning the pages, wanting to know what would happen. The main character intrigued me at first. And that's about as close as I can get to praise for this book.

If you can stomach explicit, twisted violence and enjoy analyzing it on a symbolic or literary level, then you may appreciate this book more than I. I don't think this book had anywhere near enough to say, however, to justify its sickening level of violence.

At its heart, this is a mediocre whodunit. A good mystery of this type gives us several plausible suspects, each with motive, each keeping us guessing. I guess that Susanna Moore wasn't up to the task, so instead she gives us red herrings: clues that mean nothing; characters who are under suspicion simply because they always seem to be showing up for no good reason; a revelation at the end that is disappointing in its lack of connection to what the reader already knows.

Moore apparently sees nothing good in female sexuality. It seems to me that she is portraying women as victims of their own "uncontrollable" urges, blinded by sex. Weak because of it. That's a sad perspective to take.

The violence in this book is gruesome and hard to stomach at points. I don't mind violence in a book or movie when it serves a purpose. Instead, here, it is both the means and the end.

Again, I'm sure that some readers will get off on analyzing this book in terms of symbols -- the narrator symbolizes "this"; her use of language tells us "that" about the human condition. But the main character, who starts off so refreshingly different, never gets fully developed. The other characters are caricatures, there only to play out their role. As someone who prefers to read about people rather than mere cyphers, and who doesn't appreciate graphic violence without a strong story to support it, In The Cut doesn't make the cut.

Rating:
Summary: Dark and literary erotic thriller!
Review: I knew I was in for a rather dark and lurid read when I picked up In the Cut. Susanna Moore takes the reader to a disturbing ride in which sex and obsession play a major role.

The female protagonist is a frustrated woman who tries to teach her students lessons about irony and other languages in literature. Her life takes a spin toward disarming when she witnesses an intimate moment between a man and a woman. The only things she was able to make out in the dark room were the man's tattoo and the woman's red hair. When the redhead is found murdered, the protagonist finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation that threatens her safety, especially when she embarks upon a sexual liaison with the mysterious Detective Malloy...

The story is dark, the building of tension slow, and the language is brutally honest and raunchy from beginning to end. Also, the clues and foreshadows -- namely the mention of irony -- weren't lost on me as the story reached its flooring climax. I cannot fathom the bad reviews here. This is one of the best crafted erotic thrillers ever written. I hope the film does this excellent novel justice. I highly recommend this impressive literary offering.