Praise for King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes
“Despentes argues compellingly about women’s guilt, men’s power, and the way that both are still abused three decades after the supposed triumph of feminism.”
—Katy Guest, Independent
“A gloriously aggressive and fearless writer.”
—Lisa Hilton, Times Literary Supplement
“A manifesto . . . part memoir, part political pamphlet, it is a furious condemnation of the ‘servility’ of enforced femininity and was a bestseller in France—the title refers to her contention that she is ‘more King Kong than Kate Moss.’”
—Elizabeth Day, Observer
“King Kong Theory is a free-ranging feminist manifesto . . . her writing has an undeniable edge and urgency.”
—Lesley McDowell, Independent on Sunday
Published in 2015 by the Feminist Press
at the City University of New York
The Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5406
New York, NY 10016
First Feminist Press edition 2015
Text copyright © 2010 by Editions Grasset & Fasquelle
Translation copyright © 2013 by Siân Reynolds
Originally published in France by Editions Grasset & Fasquelle in 2010.
First English-language edition published in Britain by Serpent’s Tail in 2013.
All rights reserved.
This book is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
This book was made possible thanks to a grant from New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
No part of this book may be reproduced, used, or stored in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Feminist Press at the City University of New York, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First printing April 2015
Cover design by Molly Crabapple
Text design by Drew Stevens
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Despentes, Virginie, 1969-
[Apocalypse bébé. English]
Apocalypse baby / by Virginie Despentes ; [translated by Sian Reynolds] — First feminist press edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-55861-884-8 (ebook)
1. Women detectives—Fiction. 2. Missing persons—Fiction. 3. Mystery fiction. I. Reynolds, Sian, translator. II. Title.
PQ2664.E7895A8813 2015
843'.914—dc23
2014039946
Contents
Yacine
BARCELONA
Vanessa
The Hyena
Elisabeth
Valentine
PARIS
About the Author
About Feminist Press
Also available from Feminist Press
. . . como dos vampiros dormiremos sobre tu tumba, calentaremos tus huesos, como dos vampiros vendremos a saciar tu sed de sexo, de sangre y de testosterona.
Testo Yonqui, Paul B. Preciado
To B.P.
NOT SO LONG AGO, I WAS STILL THIRTY. ANYTHING could happen. You just had to make the right choice at the right moment. I often changed jobs, my short-term contracts weren’t renewed, I had no time to get bored. I didn’t complain about my standard of living. I rarely lived alone. The seasons followed one another like packets of sweets: easy to swallow and differently colored. I don’t know quite when it was that life stopped smiling on me.
Today I have the same pay as ten years ago. Back then, I thought I was doing all right. Once I passed thirty, the spring went out of things, the impetus that carried me along seemed to ebb away. And I know that next time I find myself on the job market, I’ll be a mature woman, without any qualifications. That’s why I’m clinging on for dear life to the work I have now.
THIS PARTICULAR MORNING, I arrive late. Agathe, the young receptionist, taps her watch with her finger and frowns. She’s wearing fluorescent yellow tights and pink, heart-shaped earrings. Easily ten years younger than me. I ought to take no notice of her impatient little sigh when she thinks I’m taking too long to take my coat off, instead I mutter an indecipherable apology, head straight for the boss’s door, and raise my hand to knock on it. From inside his office comes the sound of hoarse screaming. I step back, alarmed. I look at Agathe questioningly, she makes a face and whispers, “It’s Madame Galtan, she was waiting for you outside, before we opened
