This book is a bit of a head-fuck, and not necessarily in a bad way. It’s the kind of book that leaves you low-key thinking, what the actual fuck is going on?
Set in a French village, the novel loosely draws on a real-life mass poisoning that occurred there, though this fact feels almost incidental. Knowing it’s based on something real doesn’t really clarify anything; if anything, it highlights how disorienting the story is.
There’s a lot of sex, a lot of yearning, and very little clarity. Much of it is violent, uncomfortable, and intentionally unsettling. Everyone is hot, deeply strange, and then someone’s suddenly masturbating in a bakery, and as a reader you’re left hovering between fascination and total confusion.
It reads like a fever dream.
From a critical standpoint, it’s easy to argue that the book lacks cohesion and a plot. But that resistance also feels deliberate. The prose is undeniably beautiful, and there’s an intense, unsettling erotic charge to the relationship between the narrator, Elodie, and Violet that carries much of the novel’s emotional weight.
I’m not convinced it fully lands, and I’m not sure most readers would enjoy it, but for those willing to surrender to its atmosphere rather than its logic, Cursed Bread offers something hypnotic and some beautiful prose.
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