In the texts studied in this chapter we shall see the story beginning to be engendered by photographs set alongside the text, first of all without any attempt at integration (Vice), then becoming integrated into the narrative (Suzanne et Louise). The writer then proceeds to another stage in the relationship between image and text in L'Image fantô me in which photography feeds the text while remaining absent from it. As for themes, they will be similar to those of La Mort propagande but worked out in a more polished way.

LA PIQÛRE D'AMOUR ET AUTRES TEXTES SUIVI DE LA CHAIR FRAÎCHE [TEXTS DATING TO 1980]

The stories (eight in number, called ‘nouvelles’ [‘short stories’] on the back cover, though the text is not signed Hervé Guibert) that I shall be discussing were written between 1977 and 1980: ‘La Piqûre d'amour’; ‘Le Lanceur de couteaux’; ‘Copyright, cinéma’; ‘La mâchoire de l'Harski’; ‘Une petite bonne femme sans histoire’; ‘L'ami allemand’; ‘Le critique photo’; ‘Le trio mystérieux’ (‘The Love Injection’; ‘The Knife Thrower’; ‘Copyright, Cinema’; ‘The Harski's Jaw’; ‘A little Woman who did not make a fuss’; ‘The German Friend’; ‘The Photographic Critic’; ‘The Mysterious Trio’). As such, it would take too long to summarise them all. Most of them were first published in the review Minuit (see Bibliography).