Catherine Chidgey’s The Starving Bride exposes the extremes of our always-performing world

In The Starving Bride , the latest novel from internationally acclaimed New Zealand author Catherine Chidgey, the English town of Blackpool attempts to stave off the horrors of the present by returning to the past.

Residents of the increasingly fractured and climate-ravaged United Kingdom flock to the seaside resort, drawn by the local council’s #ASimplerTime campaign.

The once dwindling “Golden Mile” between the North and South piers has been revived with new arcades, sideshows and vaudeville acts that recall Blackpool’s heyday.

But a simpler time isn’t necessarily an innocent one, and many of the revived amusements are troubling.

Animal cruelty, blackface and Blackpool’s problematic “ midget town ” have all returned.

As has the “Starving Bride”, an act from the 1930s , where young women would publicly starve themselves for the entertainment of the masses.

Review: The Starving Bride – Catherine Chidgey (Penguin) Chidgey’s protagonist, Hazel Whitlock, is drawn to Blackpool following the loss of her job and collapse of her relationship.

Initially hoping to join her childhood friend Gilda as one of the dancers in the Blackpool Circus, she is recruited instead as the new Starving Bride.

Installed in a glass coffin in an enclosure beneath Blackpool’s iconic tower, Hazel is challenged to display herself for 40 days (a time limit which, perhaps deliberately, recalls Franz Kafka’s story A Hunger Artist ), for the promise of a 40,000 pound reward.

As an additional titillation, she will be locked in the enclosure with a lion from the circus, set to prowl around her casket.

Hazel is assured she will not be at any real risk.

She will not have to remain in the coffin at night and will be free to move around the tower once the punters have left.

Nor will she need to really starve herself – her deteriorating condition will be conveyed largely through makeup, clothing and performed languidity.

The lion, Xander, is fully trained and often sedated.