Episode 23: The Torture Garden - Classic French Extremity

Octave Mirbeau's 1899 novel The Torture Garden is a notorious and extreme work of French decadence. The book pulls no punches in its discussion of political corruption, sexual deviancy, and body horror, maintaining its capacity to shock across the decades. Join Jack and Kate for a macabre journey from the cynical sewers of French politics to the blood-soaked abbatoirs of the Far East.

Does using public transportation regularly lead to murderous ideation? Is our narrator the first fuckboi in literary history? Why on earth do your hosts enjoy poisonous femme fatale characters so much? All these questions and more will be answered in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People.