How To Cut A Throat - Paris Review

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Advertisement Sam Abrams

Issue 66, Summer 1976

for gil sorrentino

most people have absolutely the wrong idea of how to go about cutting a throat, the right way to do it on animals anatomically similar to humans such as dogs, sheep, veal calves and very young pigs—emphatically not on full-grown pigs or even half-grown cattle—is not at all as most people imagine like slicing a baloney, a mistake i myself made on the first few throats i cut, putting the edge of the knife against and at right angle to the throat and drawing it across while pressing, wrong.

the correct, or at least a far better method is to place the point of your knife at the soft spot on the side of the throat just below the junction of the jaw and the neck, if you put your finger on your lower jawbone and trace it back to the place where the bone turns upwards then move your finger down a bit you will find the spot, now place the point of your knife on this spot, with the cutting edge facing outwards, away from the ventral surface of the intended victim, thrust the knife through the neck, guiding the dull, back edge of the blade closely against the tough bundle of neck cords, esophagus, gullet and vertebral column, when the tip of the knife comes through on the same soft spot on the other of the neck, slash outwards, away from the victim.

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