Vanessa de Sade

In the Forests of the Night Vanessa de Sade

In the Forests of the Night is an erotic re-imagining of the darker fairy tales of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, transposing the familiar stories into contemporary urban settings and accentuating their sub rosa sexuality for a modern audience. Thumbelina takes place in a midget's strip club in a seedy costal town in the north west of England; a vampiric Hansel and Gretel plays out in a desolate Sunset Boulevard-esque Manhattan Penthouse; Cinderella fights for her place to appear nude in a TV-reality show; while Little Red Riding Hood is reenacted in a decaying Hollywood hacienda, the overall tone of the collection being the unholy Gothic love child of a torrid one-night-stand between Angela Carter and Hustler magazine, every story rich in erotic imagery and peopled by weird and eccentric characters.