Consumed

July 7, 2014
In the debut novel from the director of The Fly and The Dead Zone, lovers Naomi Seberg and Nathan Math fancy themselves journalists. They are social-media addicts obsessed with the minutia of technology and vapid sensation. Naomi becomes obsessed with the murder and subsequent consumption of French intellectual Célestine Arosteguy by her dapper husband, Aristide. Questing after the truth, Naomi pursues Aristide to Japan, and they become romantically entangled. In France, intermittently faithful Nathan falls for a doomed cancer patient. While the lovers are disconnected by geography, they are more intimately connected than either can suspect. Cronenberg may be best known for his films, but this cool, unsympathetic examination of self-absorbed intellectuals shows that his skills as a prose author are not to be discounted. Neither Naomi nor Nathan is in any way endearing, but their descent into bizarre depravity is fascinating, even darkly humorous. The convolutions of the plot are as uninhibited by plausibility as the characters are by common decency, but readers will find it impossible to look away from the grotesque spectacle. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency.

December 22, 2014
Actor Hurt’s intentionally understated narration proves effective in presenting this disturbing first novel by Canadian filmmaker Cronenberg (Cosmopolis). Lovers Naomi Seberg and Nathan Math fancy themselves journalists. They are social-media addicts obsessed with the minutia of technology and their own vapid sensation. Naomi becomes obsessed with the murder and subsequent consumption of French intellectual Célestine Arosteguy by her dapper husband, Aristide. Searching for the truth, Naomi pursues Aristide to Japan, and they become romantically entangled. In France, intermittently faithful Nathan falls for a doomed cancer patient. While Naomi and Nathan are disconnected by geography, they are more intimately connected than either can suspect. Hurt, with his soft, slightly raspy voice, keeps his narration low-key as he reads Cronenberg’s novel with a detached delivery. It is a clear, deliberate, clinical reading that fits perfectly with the novel’s tone. The descriptions are graphic, at times to the extreme, but Hurt’s reading creates a distance that keeps the horror at bay, enough to allow listeners to take in the elaborate, strange, and grotesque world that is recognizably the creation of David Cronenberg. A Scribner hardcover.