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‘Rolling over so easily’

Steven Carroll’s take on Story of O
by
April 2021, no. 430

by Steven Carroll

Fourth Estate, $32.99 pb, 308 pp

‘Rolling over so easily’

Steven Carroll’s take on Story of O
by
April 2021, no. 430

On the back cover of O, we learn that the protagonist of the novel, Dominique, lived through the German occupation of France, participated in the Resistance, relished its ‘clandestine life’, and later wrote an ‘erotic novel about surrender, submission and shame’, which became the real-life international bestseller and French national scandal, Histoire d’O (1954). ‘But what is the story really about,’ the blurb asks, ‘Dominique, her lover, or the country and the wartime past it would rather forget?’

Shannon Burns reviews 'O' by Steven Carroll

O

by Steven Carroll

Fourth Estate, $32.99 pb, 308 pp

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