| The Story of the Weasel | |
| Author: | Carolyn Slaughter |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Publisher: | Hart-Davis, MacGibbon (UK) Mason-Charter (US) |
| Release Date: | 1976 (UK) 1977 (US) |
| Media Type: | |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Isbn: | 0-246-10887-8 |
The Story of the Weasel (published 1976) is the first published novel of Carolyn Slaughter. It won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize the following year.[1] Published as Relations in the United States,[2] [3] it has been praised for its 'sensitive treatment of fraternal incest in Victorian England and for its subtle poetic prose'.
The frame story is set in 1900 Cirencester as 30-year-old Catherine Roach is writing the story of her childhood in 1880s Wandsworth, when at the age of ten she and her brother Christopher, two years her senior, discover their late father's collection of pornography. Prompted by the discovery the siblings then start a sexual relationship which lasts for three years; coming to an end on a holiday in Cornwall after which Christopher leaves home; eventually emigrating to South Africa. Catherine writes the story in order to come to terms with the damage the relationship caused her and her brother.
'Impressively accomplished first novel... The style is perfectly suited'
This strange little gothic tale, with its episodes of sadism, madness and self-mutilation, shows a genuine originality'