The Snake cover

The Snake

by Melanie Desmoulins

When Lucy, a sexually frustrated young widow, is mysteriously sent a plane ticket to Portugal, she takes a flight into erotic abandon which can only lead to death and damnation. Soon seduced by both a debauched Englishwoman and her Portuguese husband, she sheds the skin of morality like a serpent and begins to act out her darkest, uninhibited sexual desires. Increasingly depraved rituals of narcotics abuse, Satanism and sadomasochism - presided over by Bartolomeo, a Sade-like albino cult leader - eventually lead to the total disintegration of Lucy's ego. At Bartolomeo's isolated villa, a shrine to pornographic art and literature, she finally enters the snake pit... In the literary tradition of Georges Bataille and Alina Reyes, The Snake is a scarifying testament to uncontrolled sexual mania and the phallic power of the primal serpent. - From scribd.com

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?