Open Wide by Jessica Gross

Jessica Gross’ Open Wide reveals itself fully only with hindsight. It starts as an examination of romance and obsession, before taking those themes in such an unexpected direction it makes your head spin. However, upon reflection, the clues as to what transpires are there all along.

Radio presenter Olive records her life and all her interactions privately and guardedly, a secret which brings her comfort and self-definition. This proves to be just the beginning of her obsessions. When she meets surgeon Theo, her initial interest is fired by very specific physical characteristics – the gap between his front teeth and the tendon of his left leg. Attraction quickly becomes infatuation, as Olive needs to know and understand every aspect of Theo’s life and uses all available means to do so. The reason for this behaviour can be found in Olive’s other defining relationship, that with her mother, which is one of extraordinary mutual passive aggression. What follows can be summed up by the title of Part Two, Metamorphosis, as we move from an intense and erotic love affair to all-out body horror. In doing so Open Wide proffers flesh for fantasy, a place where Anaïs Nin meets David Cronenberg.

With vampiric, even cannibalistic, tendencies it may prove a challenge for the faint of heart (or stomach), but Gross has written a pitch-black, satirical, and sensual examination of the desire to belong, to love and be loved, and what it means to be needed. It is undoubtedly disturbing, yet all too human.

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Out now with Harvill Secker