La Fee Sanguinaire

Two thugs deliver a barrel at a suburban doorstep. The occupant (a young member of the bourgeoisie – Lethem’s symbol for all that is wrong with society) returns and opens it, only to find a beautiful naked woman who he eventually makes love to. Flashbacks reveal something of the girl’s happily sadistic and anarchic existence – on one occasion she calmly puts out the eyes of a little child, on another she strangles a nun with her rosary (shades of William Blake) after causing the Woman of God raptures by massaging her voluminous breasts. None of this can, however, prepare us for the shock of the blood upshot.