Expletives Deleted

Cover

About the Author

Also by Angela Carter

Title Page

Introduction

Author's Introduction

TELL ME A STORY

1. Milorad Pavic:
Dictionary of the Khazars

2. Milorad Pavic:
Landscape Painted with Tea

3.
Irish Folk Tales, Arab Folktales

4. Danilo Kis:
The Encyclopedia of the Dead

5. John Berger:
Pig Earth

6. John Berger:
Once in Europa

7. The German Legends of the Brothers Grimm

8. Georges Bataille:
Story of the Eye

9. William Burroughs:
The Western Lands

10. William Burroughs:
Ah Pook is Here

11. J. G. Ballard:
Empire of the Sun

12. Walter de la Mare:
Memoirs of a Midget

13. The Alchemy of the Word

TOMATO WOMAN

14.
An Omelette and a Glass of Wine
and other Dishes

15. Redcliffe Salaman:
The History and Social Influence of the Potato

16.
Food in Vogue

17. Elizabeth David:
English Bread and Yeast Cookery

18. Patience Gray:
Honey from a Weed

HOME

19. Hanif Kureishi:
The Buddha of Suburbia

20. Ian Jack:
Before the Oil Ran Out
and others

21. Michael Moorcock:
Mother London

22. Iain Sinclair:
Downriver

AMERIKA

23. Robert Coover:
A Night at the Movies

24. Hollywood

25. Edmund White:
The Beautiful Room is Empty

26. Paul Theroux:
My Secret History

27. Gilbert Hernandez:
Duck Feet

28. Louise Erdrich:
The Beet Queen

29. Grace Paley:
The Little Disturbances of Man
and
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute

LA PETITE DIFFERENCE

30. Charlotte Brontë:
Jane Eyre

31. David Kunzle:
Fashion and Fetishisms

32. Christina Stead

33. Phyllis Rose:
Jazz Cleopatra

34. Murasaki Shikibu:
The Tale of Genji

35. Eric Rhode:
On Birth and Madness

Envoi: Bloomsday

Notes

Copyright

About the Author

Angela Carter was born in 1940. She read English at Bristol University, and from 1976–8 was a fellow in Creative Writing at Sheffield University. She lived in Japan, the United States and Australia. Her first novel,
Shadow Dance
, was published in 1965, followed by
The Magic Toyshop
(1967, John Llewellyn Rhys Prize),
Several Perceptions
(1968, Somerset Maugham Award),
Heroes and Villains
(1969),
Love
(1971),
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman
(1972),
The Passion of New Eve
(1977),
Nights at the Circus
(1984, James Tait Black Memorial Prize) and
Wise Children
(1991). Four collections of her short stories have been published:
Fireworks
(1974),
The Bloody Chamber
(1979, Cheltenham Festival of Literature Award),
Black Venus
(1985) and
American Ghosts and Old World Wonders
(1993). She was the author of
The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History
(1979), and two collections of journalism,
Nothing Sacred
(1982) and
Expletives Deleted
(1992). She died in February 1992.

ALSO BY ANGELA CARTER

Short Stories

Fireworks

The Bloody Chamber

Black Venus

American Ghosts and Old World Wonders

Burning Your Boats: Collected Short Stories

The Virago Book of Fairy Tales
(editor)

The Second Virago Book of Fairy Tales
(editor)

Wayward Girls and Wicked Women
(editor)

Novels

Shadow Dance

The Magic Toyshop

Several Perceptions

Heroes and Villains

Love

The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman

The Passion of New Eve

Nights at the Circus

Wise Children

Non-fiction

The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise

in Cultural History

Nothing Sacred: Selected Writings

Shaking a Leg: Collected Writings

Drama

Come unto These Yellow Sands: Four Radio Plays

The Curious Room: Collected Dramatic Works

ANGELA CARTER

Selected Writings

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
Michael Moorcock

Although we were near contemporaries, born a few months and a few miles apart, and were acquainted for some 25 years, Angela Carter and I did not become good friends until after my wife and I returned to London from Yorkshire in the early 1980s. Angie was especially kind to Linda, who, as an American, felt a bit excluded by many English people. The two women were natural sisters; they shared political views, were both outspoken, forthright, untricky, could swear like Tommy Atkins and were dramatically good-looking.

With Angie's companion, Mark Pearce, we got on easily and well. Neither Mark nor Linda had much time for the literary demimonde and they helped Angie and me keep our feet on the ground. We all had strong likes and dislikes (not always the same). We relished many of the same activities. Mark was an archer, as I had been when younger, and taught their son Alex to shoot. Mark never wasted words and like Linda could say a great deal with a glance. Not making many literary friends at the best of times, I valued Angie's friendship a lot.

Her instincts for special occasions were always exactly right. I'm looking now at the photograph of a seaside pierrot she gave me for my fiftieth birthday. It is one of the most fruitful images I have. She was very generous with her time in aid of a good cause. Her insights were always original and witty. She was one of the easiest companions to relax with. She could be a discreet and sensitive friend. Her gossip was never, ever treacherous, rarely malicious. If she attacked someone it was almost always directly and, like Linda, if she didn't like you, you knew it pretty quickly. She had taught
in the USA and had good stories about it. She also knew Japan well. She and Linda exchanged anecdotes of their experiences there.

As South Londoners Angie and I had a great deal in common. We had enjoyed the same enthusiasms as teenagers when folk music, blues, early rock and roll and science fiction all seemed to offer possibilities which the more conventional forms lacked. Because we were so frequently abroad, our early meetings had been intermittent, but it was comfortable to share the same memories of South London and recall childhood frustrations and hopes. She didn't tell me she was writing one, but when I read her review of my novel
Mother London
in the
Guardian
(see chapter 21)
I burst into tears, not because she had praised me but because it was another example of her generosity. We had in common a love of popular English culture – Dan Leno, Marie Lloyd and other stars of the music hall; Arthur Askey, Max Miller and Max Wall; Ealing comedies and those writers of working-class and lower middle-class comedies such as Gerald Kersh and Jack Trevor Story, whose talents and observations were rarely recognised by the literary world.

I especially liked Angie's fiction of the 1980s as it moved from the fantastic to the extraordinary, still conveying the uniqueness of individuals and their experience. It seemed to me that she was entering an incredibly fruitful period in which she transferred her attention from, as it were, the alienated to the marginalised.

We were part of a small group of people who, for one reason or another, considered ourselves a bit outside the mainstream. Her other friends included Salman Rushdie, Tariq Ali, J.G. Ballard, Lorna Sage and, of course, Carmen Callil, publisher and co-founder of Virago – mostly people who, for various reasons, did not identify readily with the English establishment and, indeed, did not always make easy relationships. All, however, were united in their friendship and concern for her.

In early 1991, while in California, I asked her if she'd like to contribute to an anthology version of
New Worlds
which was at that time being revived by my friend David Garnett. She had regretted not appearing in the original, so it struck me she would be a great addition to Garnett's contents page. He was extremely enthusiastic. But after I wrote to her and asked her, I heard nothing. I was surprised, since she wasn't normally given to embarrassed silences, but I assumed in this case that she hadn't wanted to say no. The anthology went ahead without her.

After California, Linda and I continued on to Spain and did not return to England until August. The first issue of
New Worlds
was due to come out in the autumn. Amongst the letters waiting for me was one from Angie which I opened hoping she had decided to do something for the second number.

I still have the letter:

August Bank Holiday

The Chase,

London SW4

Dear Mike,

Seeing the ad. for ‘New Worlds' prompted me to write and apologise for not replying to your letters, earlier this year. I am sorry, and even sorrier that I won't be able to contribute a story to ‘New Worlds' – though honoured to be asked . . .

Why beat about the bush. I had a diagnosis of cancer shortly before Easter, and the entire summer has been taken up with tests, and treatments, and now more tests. (It's in the lung.) As a result, this house has been at sixes and sevens, somewhat, and most things not connected with daily living have gone by the board. It's very difficult not to sound melodramatic, under the circumstances, but there we are. I'm not one of those people who can work through anything, unfortunately – I've been doing a little book reviewing, and stuff, and catching up on my reading. (All those books, you understand, that one always meant to read . . .)

What the hell. I feel reasonably chipper, in myself, as they say, and contrary to rumour, nothing hurts. If I think of a ‘New Worlds'-type idea, then I'll be in touch, soonest. But, at the moment, I am bereft of any ideas at all – except, and plentifully, theories about current events in Russia, but those I share with my own paranoia, not with this typewriter, even.

We still have a plan to take you and Linda down the canal. Or, up the canal. Or, since the canal does not flow, I suppose I should say, along the canal, because it goes neither up nor down, like the Grand Old Duke of York.

Lots of love and to Linda. Your Angie.

I'm not sure any of us realised how little life she had left, but we
began to see quite a lot of each other for the rest of that year. Linda and I had settled down in London. Linda would prepare easily transported food and we would take it over to Clapham to save Angie and Mark the trouble of cooking. I found her some hash, which could be eaten rather than smoked, since we had heard that cannabis helped offset the effects of chemotherapy. She thought it worked.

We didn't dwell on the details of her treatments. Apart from the odd reference to hospitals and doctors, our friendship went on pretty much as it had done. We discussed issues of the day, our hatreds and our enthusiasms. I don't think we were pretending that anything was normal. She was straightforward about her symptoms (‘Don't worry,' she'd say if she started coughing, ‘I'm not bringing up bits of lung.'). We never avoided the fact, but we didn't tend to brood about it either. Soon she knew there was very little chance of her recovering from the cancer, which was advanced before her diagnosis. She began to hope for enough time to see friends and relatives and became primarily concerned for Mark and Alex.