#60 Mixed Breeding- Nicola Barker
This one’s a bit out there. Lenny’s new rebound girlfriend
seems to have a sexual canine fetish:
“Had Lenny realized that Cassandra’s interest in him was
based principally upon a sexual fascination with Pike, his German
Shepherd/Labrador cross, he would definitely have reconsidered his good opinion
of her.”
Her sexual preclusions with dogs remain unspoken but her
liberal feelings towards sexual pleasure as a whole are wide open for
discussion. Doll, Lenny’s mother, doesn’t
like Cass at all and the tension between them is the whole story. Oedipal feelings abound but not in the way
one my think.
These topics are spoken of in a matter-of-fact style and not as
perversions, which make the story read normal, until the final envelope is pushed
at the end. Barker has the reputation for the occasional “shock topic.” This
probably falls in that category. Overall, It’s an ok story, worthy of a read,
but not one good enough to warrant its inclusion in a collections subtitled: "100 of the finest short stories ever written."
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