Ever imagined Bridget Jones as a psycho killer? That, roughly, is the premise of LS Hilton’s tautly erudite erotic thrillers, Maestra and Domina.
They’re two thirds of a projected trilogy that’s just been optioned for killer Hollywood blockbuster treatment, and makes the 50 Shades franchise seem like dumb, vanilla sex butt-wipe!
It’s not surprising – author Hilton is a hugely telegenic, Oxford educated art historian, thoroughly conversant with the most deviant sexual anti-heroes from De Sade to Lucrezia Borgia. And, having grown up way after gay sex was legalised in this poxy banana republic called Britain, she takes fierce, omnisexual excess for granted, and writes accordingly. Thank Christ – she’s created unrestrained, mutant chick-lit that reads like Mills and Boon dictated by a wholly unapologetic Joe Orton! No wonder she’s finding a huge, wholly unexpected gay fan base – her heroine has a frenzied hunger for affluent cock that makes Mae West seem demure!
Still, the extremes in Hilton’s novels – which we’ll discuss later – hardly explain Hollywood’s manic feeding frenzy to secure her film rights. See, nothing beats a classic, rags-to-riches plot, and Hilton’s created a twisted Cinderella scenario that’s brimming with cultural and psychological finesse.
Think you’ve encountered the last word in unconventional, female anti-heroes with Steig Larsson’s semi-autistic Lisbeth Salander? Well, take a deep breath and say hello to Judith Rashleigh. A disgruntled junior art researcher from a deprived background working in an eminent auction house, she’s obsessed with bettering herself. Slipping into exploratory pseudo-prostitution via tentative shifts at a lap-dancing club, she discovers hugely addictive, easy money, eventually travelling abroad with an art-broker trick.
Fortunately, he dies during sex, so, relieving him of his art and cash, Judith audaciously begins stealing Old Masters, faking identities, shagging amoral billionaires and killing when necessary. Well, wouldn’t you? Why let inconvenient blood and guts get in the way of obsessional, high-end retail therapy?
Predictably, Maestra drew a storm of protest from shocked, prissy readers when first published. But what’s truly shocking is how completely they failed to understand that Hilton was satirising moral bankruptcy and Kardashian-style commodity culture, not celebrating it!
So how blatant do you have to be before readers get it? Certainly, when needed, Hilton pulls no punches. As Judith gets ever deeper into the sordid, criminal underbelly of high end European art society, she encounters a world of nightmare depravity behind the stunning exterior glamour. Cue an abusive MDMA orgy, twisted sex, skanky tranny tarts, lethally louche rent-boys, and – most shockingly – a murdered, elderly gay oligarch artfully arranged as a naked scapegoat.
Sure, Judith may be a ruthless, homicidal cunt, obsessed with label and lifestyle branding like Brett Easton Ellis’s serial killer protagonist in American Psycho, but shockingly, she’s the ironic moral high ground in Hilton’s books! After all, unlike herself, every super-rich scumbag, pervert and pimp she kills is completely spiritually corrupted by greed, which makes Judith, by default, an admirably ethical assassin!
Still, perhaps being the least contemptible character in a book doesn’t fully secure reader sympathy, so Hilton deftly deploys flashbacks establishing a tender, very humane teenage Judith. Presumably, we’re meant to imply shreds of empathy still exist in adult Judith, but regardless, she’s still a stunningly intriguing, fictional psychopath. So, how does Hilton feel about Judith’s character and the novels themselves? ‘They’re very much a satire on the idea of meritocracy, Judith wants to apply all her talents to being a success, and that’s an unbelievable crock of shit that’s been sold to her generation.
On the other hand, she’s the ultimate example of Kardashian-style merit by achievement, just how far you’re prepared to go in pursuit of your dreams. She seems to be quite a Marmite character, people either love her or hate her, and there’s been a lot of very unhappy housewives who’ve read comparisons between my work and 50 Shades and felt cheated because they’ve nothing in common’.
Exactly. 50 Shades is ludicrous trash, but the Maestra series is sheer, sinful pleasures perfection! Enjoy.
Got any surgically-urgent theatre news, views or comments? Email [email protected]
