Review by Booklist Review
Uruguayan author Trías presents a bleak dystopian novel narrated by an unnamed woman living in an unnamed South American city near the coast. A mysterious algae has taken over the oceans, killing the fish and producing red-tinged, noxious fumes. Humans who come into contact with the deadly "red wind" are literally flayed; "it's like being skinned alive . . . the wind peels them right down to the muscle." When the small city's food supply becomes threatened, an exploitative corporation produces pink slime, a type of jellied meat made of tripe and other scraps combined with a chemical cleaning agent to sell to the public as a protein source. Regarding the algae and the slime, Trías leaves much to the imagination, focusing instead on the relationships the narrator has with her mother, her ex-husband Max (sickened by the deadly fumes), and Mauro, a boy afflicted with a food-craving syndrome whom she is paid to care for. Despair, arbitrariness, and resignation (which the woman's sympathetic mother stresses, "is not a virtue") shape this unnerving tale about facing environmental destruction.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A woman contends with her fraught relationships as a plague devastates her country in this vivid outing from Uruguayan author Trias (The Rooftop). A noxious red wind originating from toxic red algae has caused a lethal epidemic in the unnamed narrator's coastal city, killing hundreds, decimating the food supply, and forcing people to eat an unappetizing "pink slime" produced by a new meat-processing plant. The 40-something narrator regularly visits her self-destructive ex-husband, Max, who survived exposure to the wind, and her hypercritical mother, Leonor. She also nannies a wealthy boy named Mauro, whose tantrums and insatiable hunger require constant supervision. When a powerful windstorm hits the country--bringing with it road closures, power outages, and soot from a mysterious fire that the government keeps quiet about--the narrator and her loved ones' chances of survival rapidly dwindle. The novel captivates with its increasingly claustrophobic atmosphere, and Trías keenly explores the resentments that fester within a mother-daughter relationship, a failing marriage, and childcare work. Readers will be gripped. (July)
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Review by Library Journal Review
"I cannot stop a future that has already arrived," says the unnamed narrator of Trías's eerily calm tale about an environmental apocalypse. Told in a conversational yet purposely discomfiting future subjunctive tense, the novel recounts the slow breakdown of society after deadly algae washed ashore, killed all the fish, and made other living creatures sick when the wind blew off the sea. Now the only safe food for humans is the ultra-processed "pink slime" of the title. The narrator visits her mother and her hospital-bound ex-husband, who is one of the few humans able to tolerate infection. She also cares for a young boy with a horrific medical syndrome, whose rich parents need a break from his insatiable hunger. A compelling tale with an unhurried pace that is striking for how it juxtaposes lyricism with banality. VERDICT With her eerie and unnervingly probable plot, strong narrative voice, and focus on the small, beautiful moments of life amid disaster, Trías's (The Rooftop) tale will continue to haunt readers long after they turn the final page. Pair it with other thoughtful and subtle horror stories such as Sealed by Naomi Booth or Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A town is decimated by a horrifying epidemic in this dark novel. The second novel by Uruguayan author Trías to be translated into English--following The Rooftop (2021)--begins with a suffocating sense of doom and doesn't let up from there. The unnamed narrator, living in a port town in an unnamed country, describes the aftermath of a destructive algae bloom that's choking the life out of the area: "Under each unbroken surface, mold cleaved silent through wood, rust bored into metal. Everything was rotting. We were, too." She recounts the early moments of the epidemic, when a massive fish kill gave an indication that something was wrong; the divers dispatched to investigate the cause all lost their lives to the disease, which causes its victims' skin to peel from their bodies. The townspeople who have chosen to remain are forced to endure power outages and food shortages, with many only able to eat a processed food called "Meatrite"--the "pink slime" of the title. The narrator has regular contact with only three people: her mother, with whom she is engaged in an "eternal skirmish"; Max, her ex-husband, hospitalized and suffering from a chronic case of the disease; and Mauro, the boy she babysits, who has a syndrome that causes him to always be hungry. The narrator knows the situation isn't going to improve anytime soon, and Trías captures her resigned dread perfectly. This is a stunningly dark novel, but a beautiful one; Trías' prose and Cleary's translation perfectly capture what it feels like to live in an epidemic: "It's hard for me to describe time in confinement, because if anything characterized those periods it was the sensation of existing in a kind of non-time. We lived in a constant state of anticipation, but we weren't waiting for anything in particular." This is a knockout of a story. Stunning writing makes this a startlingly powerful novel. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
