The Bride Stripped Bare

by Nikki Gemmell

When researching novels with an older and sexually active protagonist, this title came up, and although first published in 2004, it is still compelling. As visual artist I immediately recognised the title from Duchamp’s piece, featuring a bride and her suitors. In Gemmell’s novel, a previously faithful wife releases her inhibitions by taking a lover. The book is sometimes referred to as literary porn, which makes me ask when does erotically sensual writing become porn? I find this novel anything but offensive. The protagonist’s obsession with her carnal self and her lover is uncomfortably claustrophobic, offset by disarmingly honest descriptions of a dull but functional marriage. This is a superb piece of writing—divided into chunks, each a short journal entry, composed using the pronoun you. The effect is both intimate and objectifying, best illustrated by example: “Curled around his back, your body his blanket, your palm on his heart because sometimes, you tell him, that’s all a woman wants.”