The Apple by Michel Faber

The dark underworld of repressed Victorian sexuality is again explored in Michel Faber's follow-up to his 2002 success The Crimson Petal and the White. In this new collection of short stories readers already familiar with Faber's characters are given tantalizing glimpses into their pasts and futures outwith the original novel. Yet new readers should not be put off as each story in The Apple works - as stories should - as a complete narrative, whole and of itself.
Much of Faber's success is due to his ability to depict women from all levels of the social scale. The text effortlessly interweaves the lives of prostitutes with respectable middle class depictions of femininity without detracting from either. The final story, a memoir told by the son of an original character, gently pokes fun at traditional notions of Victorian sexuality by declaring that 'sex hadn't even been invented then' - a statement firmly contradicted throughout the rest of the text. What this collection does is prove definitively that Faber is able to conjure up a convincing portrayal of 19th century life while at the same time leaving his readers with a definite yearning for more – it's a great taster for the original novel. [Katie Gordon]