Few books have challenged my sensibilities more than Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica. It is a novel that is so deeply emotionally driven that the circumstances inside the main character’s head are as tumultuous as the environment surrounding it. Marcos is the manager of a large meat processing plant and he is very good at his job. His ability to empathize with his employees along with his expertise in the industry make him a very valuable asset to the man who owns the plant whose name is Krieg and who can not stand human beings. Marcos likes people which is what makes his job so hard. It might not be so hard if the meat being processed wasn’t also people.

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Marcos’s sanity is stretched thin after a series of stressful and traumatic personal losses. His father has gone mad and is sent to live in one of the most expensive elderly homes. His baby boy died suddenly and his wife has gone to live with her mother after the death. Marcos is alone in a world that has gone mad. He used to love going to the zoo with his father but now all the animals are dead and the decay of the zoo is like the decay of his life. All the animals were killed after the government said that the virus they carried was deadly to humans. Now that the animals are gone the world needs protein and so widespread legal cannibalism flourishes.

Marcos spends his time meeting with suppliers and buyers who have their own gruesome occupations. From the breeders of human livestock who cut out the voice boxes of the head to quiet the oh-so-human screams to the tanners who make expensive clothes after the skin is flayed off before the head are slaughtered. There are also the butchers who sell to the public and game preserves that sell the opportunity to hunt your next meal. Words like cannibalism are outlawed and replaced with words like “special meat” and “head” but everyone knows what is going on. Some are brought to life by this new revolutionary human endeavor and some are sickened by the new world order. All are complicit.

One day Marcos is given a gift. The gift is a young female. She has her voice box taken out. He keeps her in the barn because he doesn’t know what to do with her. He has nightmares and drinks a lot. At some point, he lets her out of the barn. He could slaughter her for meat. She’s genetically unmodified. She’s pure. She’s worth a fortune. After he cleans her she smells like jasmine. He could sell her but he doesn’t.

Tender is the Flesh reminds me of 1984 in the way the world has adapted to a norm by changing language and shoving reality into dissociated minds. It also reminds me of The Road in that it is bleak and dangerous. Tender is the Flesh is very well written and it dives deep into the psyche of a man about to burst. Tender is the Flesh is not for the easily disturbed as it paints graphic depictions of how humans could be treated if powerful people wanted it to be different. If powerful people wanted to make meat out of humans. Meat with names.