MICHAEL FABER - THE CRIMSON PETAL AND THE WHITE

Image: Van Gogh

Sugar: a prostitute, a master in the evaluation of men. Henry Rackham: a man she loathes, and loves, and loathes again. Her reevaluation is fully earned within the world of this novel (a mucky but generously appointed place). In Sugar’s accumulation of agency, through the novel’s late turns, the narrative overcomes its middle doldrums. Read, June 2019.