Mesh (The)

Mesh (The)

Mèche

154 pages

18 cm

The Censorship Board of Ireland prohibited all English language editions of The Mesh from 15 June 1951

A novel of strange, hidden passions of women living in a forbidden world. Awarded Les Lettres Francaises prize for the best French novel of the year.

"'I hated her when I first saw her. She was so passive, so voluptuous, so unlike me. Then something changed me. Alone with her I was filled with a joy as inexorable as the rising tide. I did not understand why, but I felt compelled to protect her. Thinking about it I shuddered with triumph, thrilled to the very marrow of my bones.' A novel of inbred lives and violent, half-understood desires, The Mesh is a work of 'sensitivity, candor and psychological probing...written in the great realistic tradition of Stendhal and Balzac.' -Saturday Review" -Back cover

Woman with red hair is lying on a bed, looking out at the reader. Only her head, centred in the image, and her left arm, on which she rests her chin, are visible. She is superimposed over lighter images of multiple women, in a double-exposure fashion. The scene is lit in a monochromatic, diffused light.