Literary Critics Say 'No Sex Please' For Janet Ellis

Her 'bodice-ripping thriller' is shortlisted for Bad Sex In Fiction award

"I have been nominated for the Bad Sex in Fiction award – that means I must have been doing something right."

That's the response of Janet Ellis, local resident, actor, writer and former presenter of Blue Peter, to the news that her successful novel 'The Butcher's Hook', is shortlisted for the Literary Review's annual award.

The Bad Sex in Fiction Award has been around since 1993, and has honoured an author who has produced "an outstandingly bad scene of sexual description in an otherwise good novel."

The Award was established by Rhoda Koenig, a literary critic, and Auberon Waugh, at that time editor of the Literary Review.

Janet Ellis is one of six writers shortlisted. One of the 'offending' extracts from the book reads :

"'Little beast,' he says to me, his hands on my thighs. 'Here are your flanks, all plump and sweet.'

"And then, sliding his hand over my hips to my waist: 'Your rump, your loins. But you need flaying.'"

But Ms Ellis defends her style in a Comment is Free article in the Guardian, saying; "I didn’t set out to titillate or shock, but to have skirted around the issue would have been cowardly. I didn’t let imaginary hecklers get in the way of what I wanted to write, or worry someone who’d watched me when they were a child would suffer the trauma of finding out I was a grown woman after all."

'The Butcher's Hook' ( published by Two Roads, an imprint of John Murray) tells the dark tale of a young girl set in 18th century London and has been described as 'a 'bodice-ripping thriller'.

Reviews have used phrases as 'a strange, unsettling story (The Times), "dark, weird and gloriously feminist (Elle UK); "a boldness rare in a first novel" (Mail on Sunday).

The purpose of the prize is to draw attention to "poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction. The prize is not intended to cover pornographic or expressly erotic literature."

Books nominated so far for the 24th Bad Sex in Fiction Award include A Doubter’s Almanac by Ethan Canin, Men Like Air by Tom Connolly, The Day Before Happiness by Erri De Luca, Leave Me by Gayle Forman and The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler.

The heroine, a nineteen-year old daughter of wealthy parents, Anne Jaccob lives in an uncaring household, with a sick mother and her younger brother dead. She falls for a butcher's apprentice, though her parents have already chosen a suitor. But the young heroine is determined to pursue her own happiness, even if it means bloodshed.....

You can hear Janet Ellis read an extract of her book on this podcast from Hodder Books.

November 23, 2016