She was too peculiar, too frantic a writer: alternately prim and scandalous, exotic and ordinary, sophisticated and vulgar, mannered and obscene, entertaining and revealing, lush and gloomy. From the transsexual coloratura of “The Passion of New Eve” to the reckless music-hall parties of “Wise Children,” her novels cannot be confused with any others... Sometimes throughout the novel, Carter’s characteristic voice, those cadences soaked in opium smoke, are now and then interrupted by cutting Whether it's lively or comically dissonant, this mixture of moonstone and fake diamonds, exuberance and fraud can be tiresome. In her stories, she is able to blind, claw and escape, remaining ahead all the time.