SOURCE: Alvarez, Kate. “The Female Tongue.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4772 (16 September 1994): 20.

In the following review of Flesh and Blood, Alvarez asserts that the complex narrative structure of the novel is ultimately incohesive and frustrating to readers.

The title, Flesh and Blood, and the opening words, “An hour after murdering my mother I was in Soho”, suggest that Michèle Roberts's new novel is a murder mystery or perhaps a piece of modern Gothic. What we get instead is an infinitely complex and frustrating set of fictions.

Fred, the criminal narrator of the first chapter, finds himself in a dressmaker's shop and seizes the opportunity to disguise himself. “Choosing a dress of flesh-pink chiffon … my second skin”, and using his handkerchief and tie to fill out a bodice, he turns into our Scheherazade. Embarking on a story that will explain away his guilt, he enters a “labyrinth” that unwinds...