Tender is the Flesh: Book Review

Hi y'all. I've recently gotten back into horror novels after many years of trading them out for easier reads. Today I'd like to talk about Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica.

Before you start reading this review or the book, it does mention cannibalism, SA, and other violence against humans and animals. There are plot spoilers in this post.

Bazterrica's novel is one that the fear is more based on thought than what's actually happening. I'll get into more of that in a moment. This novel is set in Argentina in the near future, but you can only figure that out through clues rather than it being narrated to you.

The plot involves Marcos, our main character, working in a meat processing plant and dealing with the aftermath of his infant child's death. The processes described are exactly what happens in slaughterhouses today, except the meat is human instead of cow or pig. A virus that kills humans when consumed has infected animals, so all animals in this story have been eradicated. There are few living animals mentioned in the book, mainly roaches and later, a few stray dogs. Something interesting is Marcos' thought that the virus wasn't real and the government has used it as an excuse to curb overpopulation. Could this be plausible? Maybe. But then I think if overpopulation was a problem in this universe, would breeding more people, even if they're meant for food, make sense?

Marcos believes himself to be superior to those around him due to his disdain for the human meat processing that the government has sanctioned. People are not people - they're referred to as head, much like cattle are. Their vocal chords are cut out and they're raised in cages. There's a scientist introduced near the end of the novel who performs vile and cruel experiments on the 'head'.

Now, back to the main plot. Marcos is gifted a 'head', a lady he names Jasmine based on her smell, and he ends up getting her pregnant. His wife, who has been living away in the aftermath of their child's death, is called to assist in the birth of Marcos and Jasmine's baby. She's disgusted - and rightfully so - but complies and helps Jasmine birth the baby. Once it's born, Marcos stuns Jasmine and takes her out to slaughter her. This is the end of the novel.

Now, you may say, "That's it?", and I would've been right there with you. But then I got to thinking. Marcos had an air of superiority the entire novel because he didn't eat meat and felt others were disgusting for doing so, but wasn't he also using a 'head' for his own gain? His child passed away, so he used Jasmine's body to make another. Once her purpose was fulfilled, he killed her like she was nothing. And it all makes sense, really. One of the only interactions that we see from Marcos and Jasmine is him containing her in a room so she doesn't hurt 'his' child. Yes, his child. Not their child, only his. In a scene where he describes dancing with her under the tree in his yard, it's initially taken as something sweet. Now, rereading the book, I see that he's comparing to when he would dance with his dogs under the tree. She's nothing more than an animal to him.

Another non-cannibalistic aspect of this novel is familial relationships. Marcos' father is in a nursing home, seemingly having a mental breakdown after government sanctioned cannibalism came to be, and dies about two thirds into the novel. Marcos also has a sister who only cares about social status and her two children, who are off putting and disrespectful. I mean, why on earth is guessing how your family members would taste an acceptable topic of conversation? Well in this book, it is.

I read that the author is vegan, so I can see where the idea sprung from. She has a few more novels that are on my list and she's very talented. I have gone through phases of my life where I eat meat and where I don't eat meat, and I have always been generally against and disgusted by the idea of factory farming despite benefitting from it. So how can I read this novel and feel disgust when everything described is currently happening to animals all over the world?

I think to eat meat you have to be a hypocrite in some regard. I'd never kill an animal and eat it, yet I'll happily take a stroll into the grocery store and pick up a pack of chicken breasts. This book is playing on this hypocrisy - if you take the human out of the equation, meat is just meat. People don't eat their pets because they humanize them. Your dogs, your cats, your snakes, your fish, etc., are all a part of your family, so you wouldn't think of harming them. But a cow? A pig? A chicken? Once it no longer resembles the animal it once was, we are all so happy to chow down.

I'm not telling you all not to eat meat or anything of the sort, I just want you to think a little deeper when reading this novel. Cannibalism isn't a new thing and it's not a new concept in horror, but this novel really gave me a new perspective on both it and how normalized something abhorrent can actually become.

Thanks for reading!