If you are a fan of Lucio Fulci, Florinda Bolkan, giallo cinema or all of the above, then you may be interested to know that my book on Fulci’s early film, A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, is now available. I’ve referred to it in various blurbs as a ‘labour of love’, and it is: it’s been planned, written and put together entirely off my own back; to turn that around, you could say that absolutely no one has suggested that this is a book that needed to happen. But the idea had been nagging away at me for a while, even years; after much ado, it’s done and dusted.
A couple of things helped to get it written and done. And some of these things are fairly incidental: a few years ago, when the varied but always engaging Devil’s Advocates books started appearing and I started reviewing them, I began to be troubled by the idea that I could have a go myself, and A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin occurred to me as a great choice. You can enjoy Lizard on an entirely straightforward level, as a murder-mystery with brilliant fashion and décor and interesting performances, but it’s always seemed to me that there are so many other, intriguing things to say about it; its treatment of class; its post-Manson, reactionary spin on youth subculture; the way it films and frames London; its look at privilege and its inclusion of challenging, outlandish art, to name a few things. Sadly, when I casually mentioned the idea to the editor of Devil’s Advocates, it transpired that he hadn’t seen the film. To be fair, the films in the book series tended to be very well-known ones; maybe I was way off. The idea took a rest for a while. In-between, there were a few print projects which came to fruition, a few which did not (appearing and disappearing ideas and schemes, disappearing payments and incommunicado editors seems to be an occupational hazard) and a number of other things to keep me busy, not least of which running this site, often on my own, whilst attending to the day job and so on.
However, a couple of years ago I was asked to review Robert Simpson’s fine book on The Wicker Man; this was, for him, also one of those labour of love projects, with the main difference being that he had actually printed his. Robert had gone and done it; absolute full credit to him – hey, perhaps I should just crack on as well?
The result is a shade over 100 full-colour pages, organised into eleven chapters, fully referenced and illustrated throughout. The book definitely looks great, and would make a good limited-edition addition to your shelves if you enjoy collecting cinema writing. If you’ve ever read my other writing, then you’ll know what to expect, though I’ll admit a bit more trepidation here than I’d usually feel, given I’m writing about such a ferociously-beloved filmmaker. But I’m also rather proud of my little book, and I hope that some of you will enjoy it too.
Please head over to the Store here on the site to pick up a copy, if you so wish. We ship internationally for a reasonable fee! Thanks for reading and supporting.