The Bride Stripped Bare

by Nikki Gemmell

  NIKKI GEMMELL: If we dive deep into the underbelly of anyone’s sexuality it is without limitations and standards. As Goethe said, “Baseness attracts everybody.” But usually this world is completely hidden: we never know another person’s secret life. The most shocking thing about Bride is its honesty—and it is the thing that readers respond to the most. So many women have said things like, “This is me. These are my thoughts,” or “It struck such a raw nerve with me.” Responses like that have made me realize that the book was worth doing.

  Did you make the bride’s first lover, Gabriel, a virgin to reverse the old social stereotype of the male sexually preying upon the virgin female?

  NIKKI GEMMELL: I loved the idea of a man who was totally malleable, who would do exactly what a woman wanted, without any preconceived notions of what makes for glorious sex. The most obvious example to use would have been a much younger man, but I didn’t want to stray into Mrs. Robinson territory. I wanted something a little more unusual.

  Catherine Millet, in her memoir, The Sexual Life of Catherine M, says “Fucking is an antidote to boredom.” At times, the bride seems to think the same thing, albeit in less direct language. Would she agree with Millet on this, or is she too drawn to the occasional “charge” in her marriage, and to a relationship that works “enough”?

  NIKKI GEMMELL: Fucking is not an antidote to boredom for my protagonist. She is pushed into illicit sex through extreme pressures. Those pressures are not only a suspected betrayal by her husband but also by a sense that she is becoming subsumed by the role of “wife”; she has lost any sense of her former self. It is a way of reclaiming something of herself, for herself. There is a moral core to Bride. My protagonist respects the sanctity of monogamy and is deeply disturbed by the events that unfold in the book. And it’s hard to explain, but another reason for the anonymity was that it came from a deep love, a deep sense of compassion. It is the love between a husband and wife that I was most interested in, with all the compromises inherent within that particular relationship, all the mess. Nothing is clean, nothing straightforward, but there can be a tenacious love nonetheless.

  I’ve shown a female friend the part of your novel that lists “What you do not want” and “What you want.” She checked many of the practices that you listed in the first category, like “A tongue in your ear,” “To be asked what are you thinking” and “Any expression like ‘Ooh yes, baby’ and ‘C’mon.’” This made me wonder if many men—and not just the bride’s husband, Cole—have it all wrong. Do we?

  NIKKI GEMMELL: I can’t speak for all men, but it’s a section of the book that struck a chord with many women. For this chapter, I emailed about fifteen girlfriends and asked them to give me just one line on something they loved a man to do to them during sex, and one thing they couldn’t stand. Most responded, extremely candidly—much more so than in conversations we’d ever had. About a third said they didn’t like anything to do with the breasts. Hallelujah! So it wasn’t just me—and for a long time I’d thought I must be frigid in this particular area. And yet this is something men assume is a key erogenous zone for all women and always make a beeline for. Where do these sexual myths come from, and why do women so willingly perpetuate them?

  One woman said she couldn’t stand a big penis. Right on, girlfriend, I thought—I really don’t like feeling I’m being split apart either. Some commented on the sounds men made as they were coming. One woman had a particular hatred of expressions like “Ooh yes, baby,” another said she couldn’t stand it when an ex-lover sounded like he was straining on the toilet. This chapter in particular was meant to be a cheeky kind of instruction manual for men. The book, after all, is dedicated “To my husband. To all husbands.”

  I loved the idea of male readers being sparked by the erotic implications of a book “By Anonymous” and then actually learning something as they delved into it. It’s not meant to be a comfortable read but a challenging one. And what is it that men can’t stand a woman doing to them while they’re making love? Ah, it’s up to someone else to write The Groom Stripped Bare. It could only be a man, and it would have to be written anonymously—for it’s the only way to be rigorously honest. The male writer who’s come closest to that shocking, reckless, exhilarating level of candor is Michel Houellebecq.

  Yet Houellebecq, whose name has come up in discussions of Bride, writes about sexuality in a very clinical manner. Your novel is far less melancholic, or at any rate it does not push out a heavy message of sociological seriousness, like his. It wouldn’t really fit into the movement that’s been called, in part because of Houellebecq, “depressionism,” would it?

  NIKKI GEMMELL: Goodness,no.I wouldn’t include Bride in the depressionism movement in any way. My novel is all heart.

  So who are your literary influences, then? One reviewer compared you to the American novelist Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club. Is that a fair comparison?

  NIKKI GEMMELL: Haven’t read him, sorry. I’d say Bride was more in the vein of extremely raw, unflinching female confessionals like Elizabeth Smart’s By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept.Actually, the book I was thinking of when I began to write was Alessandro Baricco’s Silk. I dreamt of something extremely short, elegant and spare. But my books never end up the way I initially envisage them, no matter how much I try to corral them during the writing process. They always assume a life of their own, as Bride did very much as I was working on it. She just slipped away from me.

  Your protagonist—a writer like you—assigns a pivotal role to the ability of words to arouse. Whether it’s “the intoxicating smell of paper and leather, of words, waiting” at the library, or “saying all the words that’ve never slipped comfortably from your tongue: cunt, fuck, ass,” there is a quivering eroticism in her experience with words. Why are they so important in a story like this?

  NIKKI GEMMELL: I wanted the reading of the book to be a sensual experience. I wanted there to be a beauty to the words and the honesty; a beauty to the cover, the text, even the paper (of course, publishers aren’t quite so keen on the expense of this). But in a way I wanted the reader to be lulled into a false sense of security by the beauty and the sensuality of the whole package—and then be jarred by some extremely raw truths. I love the element of surprise in writing.

  Why the second-person narrative? A critic in The Independent wrote that this narrative voice turns your protagonist into an object and, at the same time, forces the reader into the frame. Why did you use this narrative point of view?

  NIKKI GEMMELL: I was fascinated by that particular tense and wanted to give it a go. It’s extremely difficult to sustain—the only book I’d read where it was successfully pulled off was Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City. I loved the way the second-person tense implies intimacy and yet also distance. The protagonist is recording events as he witnesses them, but also commenting upon them objectively. Some people have said of my unnamed bride that it was like “reading her brain, being in her head-space,” which was exactly the effect I was aiming for—hopefully without too much indulgence.

  The term “post-feminist” has come up in reviews of Bride. Is this a post-feminist book in its vindication of marriage and family?

  NIKKI GEMMELL: I was fascinated by the shortcomings of feminism. I consider myself a feminist and yet I still hanker, deeply, for the age-old stereotypes of mother, wife, nester—and that puts me in an odd position. I think a lot of the so-called unfashionable urges that Bride explores are deeply biological within many women, and feminism doesn’t give them much credit. Nothing is black and white; we’re all animals underneath and we have to listen to our bodies. Women, particularly older feminists, have to be more embracing of the choices some younger women are making. We just have to value one another.

  Peter Babiak’s interview with Nikki Gemmell first appeared in SubTerrain magazine. He is the Academic Director of Humanities 101 at the University of British Columbia and teaches English literature at Langara College in Vancouver.

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  Have You Read?

  NIKKI GEMMELL has published three previous novels.

  SHIVER

  A young woman, Fin, fulfils her ambition to visit Antarctica, the last great wilderness on earth. Here she integrates with the local community, learning to respect their customs and way of life. But she breaks the strictest taboo of all when she falls in love.

  “Her inimitable, urgent and demanding style makes her books impossible to put down or forget.”

  Madame Figaro

  “Gemmell writes brilliantly.”

  The Sunday Times

  ALICE SPRINGS

  Snip Freeman lost her father long ago. Accompanied by her new lover, Dave, she embarks on a journey into the vast and fierce landscape of the Australian interior, to find her father and unravel the terrifying silence of her childhood.

  “Alice Springs is like a female version of Kerouac’s On the Road.”

  Cosmopolitan

  “Leaks deep into the imagination … haunts one long after the book ends.”

  The Times

  LOVESONG

  The heartbreaking story of Lillie Bird, a woman from a locked religious community who one day finds herself in the freedom of a strange new world, England, yet accused of murdering a man.

  “Gemmell evokes place superbly … while Lillie, clever, confused and vulnerable, is real and touching.”

  The Sunday Times

  “A lovely, lyrical creation that has melody and melancholy aching through its sentences … bewitchingly good.”

  Elle, Book of the Month

  If you loved this you’ll like …

  FICTION

  Delta of Venus

  Anaïs Nin

  Lady Chatterley’s Lover

  D. H. Lawrence

  The Hours

  Michael Cunningham

  The Bell Jar

  Sylvia Plath

  NONFICTION

  The Sexual Life of Catherine M

  Catherine Millet

  The Feminine Mystique

  Betty Friedan

  My Secret Garden

  Nancy Friday

  The Whole Woman

  Germaine Greer

  FILMS

  Betty Blue (1986)

  Thelma and Louise

  (1991)

  Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

  Y Tu Mamá También

  (2001)

  Find Out More

  Don’t miss the next book by your favorite author. Sign up now for AuthorTracker by visting www.AuthorTracker.com.

  Nikki’s own website:

  www.nikkigemmell.com

  An article Nikki wrote for The Guardian, 10 July 2003:

  www.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,3604,994962,00.html

  An interview with her on Australian television:

  www.abc.net.au/enoughrope/stories/s912735.htm

  To find out more about Marcel Duchamp’s artwork of the same name:

  www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/surrealism/room1.htm

  Share your experiences on the website for women:

  http://www.ivillage.co.uk

  Inspired to experiment? Pick out some toys:

  www.myla.com

  Nikki Gemmell can be contacted through her publisher:

  Perennial

  10 East 53rd Street

  New York, NY 10022

  Praise for

  THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE

  “Titillating … like an artful striptease, The Bride Stripped Bare ensnares us with its rawness.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “With [Nikki Gemmell] as its author and an extramarital affair as its main event, this novel affects a dreamy mood … and a poetic brand of erotica.”

  —New York Times

  “An erotically charged tale of tragic yearning, The Bride Stripped Bare lingers in memory like one of those heart-stopping dreams filled with eerily familiar strangers.”

  —Boston Herald

  “Unremitting, elegant, and dark. I believe every woman should get married at least once, and read this novel twice.”

  —Suzanne Finnamore, author of Otherwise Engaged

  “The Bride Stripped Bare shows us the inside-out of marriage, infidelity, obsession, and taxi drivers (I may never take a cab ride in London again …). Few books can be both dark and light. This one dances on the edge, and sometimes crosses it, with much satisfaction to be had on either side.”

  —Valerie Frankel, author of The Accidental Virgin

  “Incredibly raw and brutal … yet written with true grace and beauty. A brave and honest novel that lingered with me.”

  —Jane Green, author of Mr. Maybe and Babyville

  “Nikki Gemmell’s passion-filled debut is escapist fiction at its intriguing best. The Bride Stripped Bare is sexy with a capital X.”

  —Jill Davis, author of Girls’ Poker Night

  “A cautionary tale of addiction to passion, this is not a book you read cover to cover in one stretch. You are meant to read it in tidbits. If you already know better than to get addicted to passion, and graphic accounts of sexual pleasure make you uncomfortable, you had better skip The Bride Stripped Bare … but you will miss some sharp insights into intimate relationships and some beautiful imagery.”

  —Detroit Free Press

  “Artful … cannily perceptive … this unusual but strangely compelling novel offers an intimate chronicle of change and self-discovery.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Gemmell’s writing is simply too beautiful. Her ideas are powerfully articulated and allow the reader to savor the stillness in her words. Each sentence is so well crafted that it resonates deeply. This is a mesmerizing and disquieting novel that will demand to be read again.”

  —Vogue (Australia)

  About the author

  NIKKI GEMMELL is the author of several acclaimed novels, including Shiver, Cleave and Alice Springs. She lives in London.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Copyright

  “Laid.” Written by Booth/Glennie/Gott. Lyrics represented by kind permission of Blue Mountains Music, Ltd.

  “Small Wire.” Reprinted by permission of Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. Copyright by Anne Sexton.

  “Hallelujah.” Written by Leonard Cohen. Lyrics reproduced with kind permission by Sony/ATV Music Publishing.

  First published in 2003 in Great Britain by Fourth Estate as The Bride Stripped Bare by Anonymous.

  First U.S. edition published in 2004 by Fourth Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

  THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE. Copyright © 2003 by Nikki Gemmell. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  HarperCollins books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information please write: Special Markets Department, HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows: Gemmell, Nikki.

  The bride stripped bare/Nikki Gemmell.

  p.cm

  ISBN 0-00-716226-X

  1. Marrakech (Morocco)—Fiction. 2. London (England)—Fiction.

  3. Married women—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR9619.3.G425B75 2004

  823’.914—dc21

  ISBN-10: 0-06-059188-9 (pbk.)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-06-0591885 (pbk.)

  EPub Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN: 9780062191472

  Version 08032012

  05 06 07 0
8 09 /RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

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