Tender is the Flesh
It happened fast. A virus swept through the animal kingdom, rendering all meat toxic to humans. Governments scrambled, legislation followed, and suddenly the unthinkable became policy. Human flesh, rebranded with clinical sterility as 'special meat', is now perfectly legal. Marcos works inside this system without flinching, or so he tells himself. His days are numbers, consignments, and cold procedure. When he receives a live human female as a business gift, intended to sweeten a deal, he locks her in his barn and plans to deal with her later. She's a problem. A unit. Except she isn't. Her eyes follow him. Her fear is impossible to ignore. And something in Marcos, buried beneath years of professional detachment, begins to crack. Bazterrica's novel is a quietly devastating piece of speculative fiction. It works as a gut-punch satire on industrialised food production, consumer numbness, and the extraordinary human capacity for moral compartmentalisation. The prose is spare and unsentimental, which makes it all the more affecting. Short, blunt sentences carry enormous weight here. This is not comfortable reading, and it's not meant to be. But if you're willing to sit with its discomfort, you'll find something genuinely thought-provoking beneath the visceral surface. Stark, memorable, and difficult to shake.
- Author: Sarah Moses
- Publisher: Pushkin Press
- Genre: Thrillers & Suspense
- ISBN: 978-1782276203
- Pages: 224 pages