What do you think?
Rate this book
Wolf Parts
A dark, fragmentary retelling of Little Red Riding Hood in forty short fictions, this edition of Wolf Parts will only be available to people who pre-order the book before its print date of March 21, 2010. The book costs $8 (with free shipping), for which you'll receive the perfect-bound minibook, plus an audiobook version that you'll be able to download immediately upon completion of your order. As an added bonus, you'll also receive an e-coupon for $3 off my full-length collection How They Were Found when it becomes available for pre-order later this year, sometime before its October release.
- GenresShort Stories
Paperback
First published March 21, 2010
About the author
Matt Bell
39 books1,676 followersMatt Bell’s next novel, Appleseed, was published by Custom House in July 2021. His craft book Refuse to Be Done, a guide to novel writing, rewriting, & revision, will follow in early 2022 from Soho Press. He is also the author of the novels Scrapper and In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods, as well as the short story collection A Tree or a Person or a Wall, a non-fiction book about the classic video game Baldur's Gate II, and several other titles. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Esquire, Orion, Tin House, Conjunctions, Fairy Tale Review, American Short Fiction, and many other publications. A native of Michigan, he teaches creative writing at Arizona State University.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 30, 2010
It was hard to read Wolf Parts without seeing the shadow of Angela Carter, who has "owned" the Red Riding Hood story for so long. Like Carter's versions of the story in The Bloody Chamber, these fragmentary retellings by Bell explore it from different angles. Power shifts from predator to prey and back again, and sexual, gender, and community identities are tried out in different combinations. Whereas Carter's versions were more narrative and linear, Bell's are a kind of Golberg Variations: repeated language and images tried out in different shapes, adding up to a virtuoso display much more than its individual parts might suggest. There's also a meta-level to the stories that strikes just the right balance between self-awareness and subtly. In the repeated occurrence of characters changing their voices and bodies, wearing disguises and mimicking each other, there's a provocative inquiry into the nature of storytelling and of tearing this "familiar" (soon unfamiliar) story apart to see it from other perspectives, even inside out through the ribs and guts of the wolf as Grandmother does. There are, the book proves, many "Ways to cut yourself out from inside a wolf or, in other circumstances, to cut your way back in." So although I began reading Wolf Parts thinking, "But hasn't Angela Carter already done this?" I shook that suspicion off quickly because this is very much it's own book, and deserving of a place beside The Bloody Chamber on the Red Riding Hood shelf.
May 2, 2010
Matt Bell is a dirty boy who wrote a dirty little book, or novelette, or micro novel—it’s very short is what I’m getting at, and can be read in an hour or so—called Wolf Parts.
Published by the fine people of Keyhole Press, the book had a very limited run, so limited, in fact, that it quickly went out of print. I was lucky enough to win a copy from the equally fine people of PANK (thanks, Roxane!).
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Wolf Parts, and I’m kind of glad I walked into it with that unknowing, because incest is always better when you don’t know it’s coming.
Wolf Parts takes the tale of Little Red Riding hood and twists it into an exploration of sexual power, or the struggle for sexual power, as Red and her Grandmother and The Wolf devour and gnaw on each other, kill each other, digest each other, and ultimately become each other.
The passages of Wolf Parts come in powerful, concise bursts, detailing the duplicitous nature and oft disturbing fantasy that exists within all relationships, be they familial or otherwise. Fathers long to bed down their daughters, daughters yearn to be raped, and, likewise, yearn to do some raping of their own.
Wolf Parts portrays human sex and sexuality for what it is: violent, primal and animalistic. And no one gets a free pass. Sure, there’s a bit of an undercurrent of female empowerment that exists here, but the women are just as culpable and despicable as the men. This isn’t necessary a bad thing, simply an honest thing, a thing that is true to the human condition. We all hunger and lust and scratch and bite—for love.
My only gripe with Wolf Parts is that it’s too damn short. The writing is strong and original, but Bell cautiously keeps the wolf on a leash, perhaps too much.
I can only imagine what Matt Bell will do with Hansel and Gretel. But I’ll be sure to be there, reading.
Published by the fine people of Keyhole Press, the book had a very limited run, so limited, in fact, that it quickly went out of print. I was lucky enough to win a copy from the equally fine people of PANK (thanks, Roxane!).
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Wolf Parts, and I’m kind of glad I walked into it with that unknowing, because incest is always better when you don’t know it’s coming.
Wolf Parts takes the tale of Little Red Riding hood and twists it into an exploration of sexual power, or the struggle for sexual power, as Red and her Grandmother and The Wolf devour and gnaw on each other, kill each other, digest each other, and ultimately become each other.
The passages of Wolf Parts come in powerful, concise bursts, detailing the duplicitous nature and oft disturbing fantasy that exists within all relationships, be they familial or otherwise. Fathers long to bed down their daughters, daughters yearn to be raped, and, likewise, yearn to do some raping of their own.
Wolf Parts portrays human sex and sexuality for what it is: violent, primal and animalistic. And no one gets a free pass. Sure, there’s a bit of an undercurrent of female empowerment that exists here, but the women are just as culpable and despicable as the men. This isn’t necessary a bad thing, simply an honest thing, a thing that is true to the human condition. We all hunger and lust and scratch and bite—for love.
My only gripe with Wolf Parts is that it’s too damn short. The writing is strong and original, but Bell cautiously keeps the wolf on a leash, perhaps too much.
I can only imagine what Matt Bell will do with Hansel and Gretel. But I’ll be sure to be there, reading.
May 8, 2010
I love books you can read in one big gulp. Matt Bell offers a cubist re-telling of the Red Riding Hood tale, amplifying its dread and delving into some of its latent symbolism and sexuality. You, the reader, have the freedom to choose the version(s) you want. I could have read versions and versions more.
May 21, 2010
Similar to Bell's killer novella The Collectors, this is a story about compulsions, and despite the focus on Little Red Riding Hood, it's specifically about the sexual and arguably violent compulsions of men and how these compulsions not only warp men, but force women to react and mold themselves to these compulsions.
April 8, 2010
I say WOLF, but of course there are various kinds of wolves.
When I found out Bell was releasing a minibook retelling the story of Little Red Riding Hood, I knew this story would not be one for my mother's 1st grade class. Rather, Wolf Parts is a collection of fragmented flash fictions that took me to sights I wish I wouldn't have seen, but at the same time, feel like a different man for seeing. Stories, I believe, should do something to me. These flashes frighten me, enliven me, rage me, touch me with their haunting metaphors and visual descriptions.
The image I can't get out of my head is Red laying naked on the skinned fur of the Wolf, after her dad has killed him to prove a lesson about protecting his daughter. When Bell writes, When she howled, it was with her mouth against his unhearing ear, her lips close to his stretched and taxidermied jaws, full of the teeth she had just once felt so lovingly against her skin. , I was at once disturbed and also moved by Bell's ability to capture such haunting moments with his pitch perfect language.
My mind is full, I said, in a previous post, from processing images like these: predatory, daring, truthful. In these stories, the predator changes: the Wolf of course, but also the grandmother as the wolf, the woodsman as a killer, Red and other girls as wolf-slayers. We are all wolves, it seems, or we have the chance to be.
I can't quite say enough about this collection as a whole. Each story shouts with a such ferocity and diversity that I will have trouble sleeping tonight, not from being afraid of the Wolf, but rather from being afraid of language and all its power.
When I found out Bell was releasing a minibook retelling the story of Little Red Riding Hood, I knew this story would not be one for my mother's 1st grade class. Rather, Wolf Parts is a collection of fragmented flash fictions that took me to sights I wish I wouldn't have seen, but at the same time, feel like a different man for seeing. Stories, I believe, should do something to me. These flashes frighten me, enliven me, rage me, touch me with their haunting metaphors and visual descriptions.
The image I can't get out of my head is Red laying naked on the skinned fur of the Wolf, after her dad has killed him to prove a lesson about protecting his daughter. When Bell writes, When she howled, it was with her mouth against his unhearing ear, her lips close to his stretched and taxidermied jaws, full of the teeth she had just once felt so lovingly against her skin. , I was at once disturbed and also moved by Bell's ability to capture such haunting moments with his pitch perfect language.
My mind is full, I said, in a previous post, from processing images like these: predatory, daring, truthful. In these stories, the predator changes: the Wolf of course, but also the grandmother as the wolf, the woodsman as a killer, Red and other girls as wolf-slayers. We are all wolves, it seems, or we have the chance to be.
I can't quite say enough about this collection as a whole. Each story shouts with a such ferocity and diversity that I will have trouble sleeping tonight, not from being afraid of the Wolf, but rather from being afraid of language and all its power.
April 24, 2010
(this review originally appeared at Outsider Writers Collective)
I’m going to try something different with this review. I often find that an author’s own words, perhaps selectively chosen, are a better summation of a text than any review. However, I do understand that the point of a review isn’t merely in summary, but is meant to judge a book as well. Here, I will give a bit of both modes, though with a heavier weight on quotes taken from the text. Here is my first “Mostly Quotes Review.” Let me know what you think.
Wolf Parts is vicious fairy tale excursions:
Pg. 7: “…she laid across the stones and, with the knife her mother had given her, gutted herself, quickly, left to right. She cried out in wonder at the bright worlds she found hidden within herself…”
Wolf Parts gives metaphor to the ambiguity of adolescence, turning the cautionary tale of “Little Red Riding Hood” into a predatory one:
Pg 14: “The wolf’s breath smelled of chalk, and his paws were covered in flour. It wasn’t enough to trick the girl, but she allowed herself to pretend to be fooled. She opened her cloak and invited him in, so that he might do what he came to do.”
Wolf Parts turns the morality lessons of our established fairy tale and turns it inside out, sometimes literally:
Pg 15: “From inside the wolf’s stomach the grandmother could only hear every third or fourth word her granddaughter spoke…She bit down hard, first on lung and heart, then indiscriminately, casting about in a great gnashing, devouring all she could until the wolf she was inside was also inside her…”
I’m going to try something different with this review. I often find that an author’s own words, perhaps selectively chosen, are a better summation of a text than any review. However, I do understand that the point of a review isn’t merely in summary, but is meant to judge a book as well. Here, I will give a bit of both modes, though with a heavier weight on quotes taken from the text. Here is my first “Mostly Quotes Review.” Let me know what you think.
Wolf Parts is vicious fairy tale excursions:
Pg. 7: “…she laid across the stones and, with the knife her mother had given her, gutted herself, quickly, left to right. She cried out in wonder at the bright worlds she found hidden within herself…”
Wolf Parts gives metaphor to the ambiguity of adolescence, turning the cautionary tale of “Little Red Riding Hood” into a predatory one:
Pg 14: “The wolf’s breath smelled of chalk, and his paws were covered in flour. It wasn’t enough to trick the girl, but she allowed herself to pretend to be fooled. She opened her cloak and invited him in, so that he might do what he came to do.”
Wolf Parts turns the morality lessons of our established fairy tale and turns it inside out, sometimes literally:
Pg 15: “From inside the wolf’s stomach the grandmother could only hear every third or fourth word her granddaughter spoke…She bit down hard, first on lung and heart, then indiscriminately, casting about in a great gnashing, devouring all she could until the wolf she was inside was also inside her…”
July 24, 2010
Explores collective storytelling and search for identity through tellings and retellings of a story we've all grown-up hearing told and told again. In some ways, it's like David Eagleman's fantastic "Sum", in that it takes one, huge, broad, undefinable thing -- in "Sum", the afterlife reflecting on life itself, in "Parts" one fable, reflecting on where fables come from and project onto, how people live with and without presuppositions and roles, and how they live up to, break free, or completely destroy those roles altogether. And it's moody, densely macabre setting -- the kind fears are made of -- is a nice place to get lost in...for a while.
December 30, 2013
This short but very interesting book is a retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood story. Or rather, not a retelling so much as a reimagining. What's even more fascinating is how Bell compiles a book out of what is really a series of short pieces, all kind of flash-fictiony, and that overall has all the weird almost-realness of a dream but the deep emotion of a personal journal and even some underpinnings that feel like a feminist dissertation or some kind of psychological study. I honestly have trouble describing it because it's so unique. Whatever you want to call it, I enjoyed reading it very much and look forward to more from this author.
May 8, 2010
Wow. I wish I owned a print version. It's one of the coolest audiobooks I've ever heard. 40 short (and very poetic) fictions retelling the story of Little Red Riding Hood and I think it's brilliant. The only thing I found annoying about the audio was that he pronounced wolf like "woof" and I would have liked to hear the presence of the "l".
July 25, 2010
An interesting take on the Little Red Riding Hood story. There are some great pages in here but I wanted it to go a little further, get a little darker. Matt's prolific though and he's bound to kick serious ass sooner than later.
April 25, 2010
holyshitwow
May 29, 2010
Listened to the audiobook again the other day. The sentences are all so clear, and such a rhythm.
September 19, 2010
Enjoyed what Matt Bell did with language as he assimilates the many versions and interpretations into his own shapeshifting version of the Little Red Riding Hood tale.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews