Misplaced Pages

Live Flesh

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
1986 novel by Ruth Rendell This article is about the novel. For the film adaptation, see Live Flesh (film).

Live Flesh
First edition
AuthorRuth Rendell
LanguageEnglish
GenreCrime, Mystery novel
PublisherHutchinson
Publication date27 February 1986
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages272 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN0-09-163680-9 (first edition, hardback)
OCLC13485433

Live Flesh is a 1986 psychological thriller by British author Ruth Rendell. It won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year. It was the inspiration for a film of the same name by Pedro Almodóvar. Almodovar's treatment of the theme is very different from the original novel, making significant changes to the characters and plot.

Plot summary

The novel's protagonist is Victor Jenner, sent to prison for shooting and crippling a police officer after an attempted rape. At his trial and afterwards he claims that his actions were unintentional and somehow provoked by his victim. But there may have been other reasons for his attack of which even he was unaware. Ten years later, Jenner is released from prison and has to find himself a new life, with the reduced resources produced by ten years' incarceration and the handicap of a significant criminal record. He discovers that it is all too easy to slip back into the old one.

References

  1. Nesselson, Lisa (13 October 1997). "Live Flesh".
  2. Bradley S. Epps; Despina Kakoudaki (2009). All about Almodóvar: A Passion for Cinema. U of Minnesota Press. p. 115. ISBN 978-0-8166-4960-0.
  3. Kirkus Children's and Young-adult Edition. Kirkus Service. 1986. p. 969.
Gold Dagger Award
1955–1959
1960–1969
1970–1979
1980–1989
1990–1999
2000–2009
2010–present
Ruth Rendell
Inspector Wexford novels
Stand-alone novels
As Barbara Vine
Short story collections
TV series


Stub icon

This article about a crime novel of the 1980s is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page.

Categories: