Consumed: A Novel, by David Cronenberg (New York: Scribner, 2014)

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Notes

1. See William Beard, The Artist as Monster; Scott Wilson, Politics of Insects; Scott E. Colbert, Celluloid Flesh; Paul O'Sullivan, Dead Flesh; and Douglas Mann, Long Live the New Flesh.

2. Noted by Ernest Mathijs in his subtitle for The Cinema of David Cronenberg: From Baron of Blood to Cultural Hero.

3. Sexuality and gender scholar Alexandre Baril defines transability as an “able-bodied person's need to modify his or her body to acquire a physical impairment/disability” (p. 31). With reference to the kind of amputation at issue in Consumed, Baril states (in another context) that researchers and members of the transabled community generally prefer the term body integrity identity disorder to refer to the underlying condition, although some writers favor the term apotemnophilia in keeping with the (unconfirmed) hypothesis that “the need to modify the body stems from sexual desire and paraphilia” (32).

4. David Cronenberg, Consumed, 175.

5. Tennessee Williams, Sweet Bird of Youth, 96.