[Book Review] In the Cut (1995)

Despite its label as an erotic thriller, Susanna Moore's fourth novel In the Cut has such a nightmare-inducing plot and haunting imagery that it fits more closely into the horror genre. (This isn't to say it doesn't have many, many wildly scintillating sex scenes – more on those later.) Frannie, a woman in her thirties living in New York City in the nineties, engages in three murkily defined relationships with men and spends much of her time working on a dictionary of regional slang. Her fascination with words leads her to see things other people don't; she even believes that Poetry in Motion (poems that are displayed on public transit in the U.S.) could contain messages for her. 

Frannie, being a linguistics expert, contributes to the book's clean and precise use of language. Moore never uses a word she doesn't need, and the words she does use are so effective as to burrow into the reader's brain. She teaches a class of bright but underserved teens, and one of her students, Cornelius Webb, develops an obsession with her. He begins following her home and eagerly offering to contribute to her dictionary of slang terms – and many terms he teaches her have a sexual or violent meaning. 

Then there is a man named John Graham, who also harbors an obsession with Frannie. While she sees him as a friend, he soon begins walking his dog outside her window every night as he stares up at her apartment from Washington Square Park. Their interactions are almost always tense, as Frannie must carefully weigh everything she says to him in order not to upset him. He's clearly irritated by the other men in her life, and in a 2021 reading of the novel, he fits into the incel category – he's angry at women, and he thinks they owe him something. And he continues to lurk around Frannie's apartment late at night. 

The relationship that takes center stage in In the Cut is Frannie's involvement with Detective James Malloy. They meet after Frannie accidentally glimpses a sexual act that precedes a vicious murder, and the cops want to know if she saw or heard anything that can help them with the case. While Frannie is reticent to share all the information she has, she falls into an extremely sexually charged relationship with Malloy. Their sex scenes are some of the most graphic, erotic and well-written in literary fiction.

However, a current of terror pulses beneath these scenes. Due to a physiological effect in the human body, people often conflate the feeling of being afraid and the feeling of being aroused. Even Frannie herself sees it in nature as she observes, "The trees in the park swayed and shuddered in anticipation, with delight or dread I do not know." For much of the story, she is convinced that Malloy is actually the killer at the center of the book's mystery, and yet, she still begins an affair with him. Her fear of Malloy morphs into her attraction to him, ultimately leading to a relationship where she is the person obsessed, rather than the object of an obsession. And the pillow talk between these two is more unusual than most – rather than exchange flirty comments, Frannie asks for more details about the gruesome cases he is working on… and Malloy is willing to provide the details.  

Women's bodies are routinely violated during this novel. The cruel nonchalance with which Malloy and his partner Richard Rodriguez discuss the crimes against women that they're investigating is gut-wrenching. As Frannie soon learns, several women in her New York City neighborhood have been disarticulated, meaning that their bodies have literally been torn apart. Her best friend tells her, "[Men] have to despise us in order to come near us, in order to overcome their terrible fear of us."

In the Cut is very much about the safety (or lack thereof) of women, especially independent women living in cities. Much of the book is comprised of Frannie's encounters with dangerous men, and it's not just Cornelius, John and Malloy – she's routinely sexually harassed on the street and even physically attacked when walking alone at night. The terror of being a woman is keenly felt, and even scarier is Frannie's resignation to the mistreatment she faces. She's been hurt by men so many times that she's almost become numb to protect herself. She describes a terrifying interaction in simple but chilling words: "I asked him not to hurt me. It seems to be what women say. And men. It did not stop him."

The fact that she is a New York City schoolteacher finding herself in increasingly harrowing situations with men brings to mind Judith Rossner's 1975 novel Looking for Mister Goodbar. While Looking for Mister Goodbar (perhaps as a product of its time) seems to place blame on the protagonist for the abuse she suffers, In the Cut, which was published two decades later, takes the position that no matter what sexual choices a woman makes, it doesn't give men the right to destroy her body – or her mind. 

As it turns out, Frannie has a big piece of information that would solve Malloy's case – but she only realizes this in the harrowing climax of In the Cut. The book's ending is what solidifies its categorization as a horror novel. Moore's beautiful and precise writing highlights the graphic, violent and heartbreaking close of the story, which will haunt the reader for many days after they finish this book. 

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