“Carcass.”
My small, barely-remarked-upon, first novel was about a cannibal, but done in a way that complemented the gore with silliness. It was a comedy with a horrific cannibal at its heart. To me, I think I assumed this is the only way to handle such a nasty concept. Turns out I was wrong; you can do it with a straight face, but the results may shock.
Some time in the future, after a virus has rendered all animal flesh inedible, humans have legalised cannibalism as the only source of meat available. Marcos works in a processing plant, where genetically modified humans are raised, bred and slaughtered for their meat. No one called the livestock “humans”, preferring to use euphemisms like “product” or “heads”. Marcos doesn’t like his job, but it distracts from his home life. His wife has moved out after their baby son died, and his father is dying in a care home. And then it gets worse when his boss delivers him a head, a young female for him to raise, breed and eat as he sees fit.
At first angry, Marcos soon sets about caring for the female and they develop an attachment which will ultimately see him break one of the taboos of this new society. And now his life is at risk.
As I said, this isn’t a funny book at all. It’s horrifying not just how quickly humanity adapts to cannibalism, but how capitalism embraces the change and people are now farmed like cattle or pigs, merely a product rather than seen as anything worth caring for. We see numerous grotesque parts of this world, including a butcher’s shop, the slaughterhouse, and how everyone from children to the elderly are affected. The other interesting aspect is how empty this world is, as human populations have shrunk considerably, but also most animals, all of which appear to have been affected by the virus, have gone. Any media featuring animals has been scrubbed as well, seen now as the enemy. Gone are the days of pets and animated films about cute critters – it’s just the humans left. Humans are filling in for animals in other ways, too, in science tests and even for hunting, because apparently some people just can’t give that up.
I’m going to be liberal with spoilers, for once too, as I need to mention that, while the subject matter is dark, the writing is very good, and the world feels terrifyingly real. When Marcos has sex with the female in his barn, whom he names Jasmine, you feel the same disgust as you would had he had sex with a pig, even though we know that these are both humans. The society gets under your skin, and worst of all none of it seems too unbelievable.
A surprise I had that I think says a lot more about me than the author is that I didn’t clock that Bazterrica was female until I looked her up about two thirds of the way into the book. There is so much violence towards women in this book, and fiction in general, and it seemed bizarre to me in a way I can’t fathom that it was a woman perpetrating it on the page here. I don’t really know what this says, but I thought I’d note it anyway.
Horrific and nightmarish, it’s not a book I’m going to forget in a hurry, but I’m not sure that’s for the right reasons.