No sex please, we’re readers

I’ve just come back from watching Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious at a rep cinema. It has just been reissued in a freshly restored print so I heartily recommend it for anyone who enjoys old-fashioned thrillers.

This lovely film got me thinking about the sexual tension onscreen. The magic of the not-quite-kissing between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman is a marvel to behold. And made me reflect on the sexual relations portrayed in The Heist. With the blog tour for The Lagotti Family boxset rolling along, I have been considering some responses which have commented on the sex in book 1. To summarise (a minority of) the reviews, some would prefer the explicit sex wasn’t in the book at all.

My aim with the novel was to reflect the tedium of waiting for a job to happen and I figured that the lowlife scum I was describing would hit the sack to hide their boredom from themselves. Seems as though I might have gone too far. So once I have finished working on my current novel, the East Side Hustler, my plan is to return to the Heist re-edit it and excise the excesses of sexual description. Having figured out quite how I shall do that and still reflect the character arcs shown in the current version, but that’s my problem.

Just thought I’d let you know what’s flashing through my head. I do love a bit of Hitchcock..