IJ study archive

Molly Notkin spills everything (p. 792)

quote

Apparently issues were complicated by the fact that Madame Psychosis emerged from puberty as an almost freakishly beautiful young woman, especially in a part of the United States where poor nutrition and indifference to dentition and hygiene made physical beauty an extremely rare and sort of discomfiting condition […]

Context

Deformity's inversion, mid-deposition: Joelle's beauty rendered in the vocabulary of abnormality — "freakishly," "rare and sort of discomfiting." In her home country perfect beauty is itself the improbable deformation, the hinge the whole lethal-perfection counter-theory of the veil turns on: either way, the face is unbearable and gets covered.

In anthology