Meat

by Joseph D'Lacey

Abyrne is a decaying town, trapped by an advancing wilderness. Its people depend on meat for survival. Meat is sanctified and precious, eaten with devout solemnity by everyone. But a handful of people... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1905636156
• ISBN13: 9781905636150
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Beautiful Books
• Length: 343 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.0" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Meat

Joseph D'lacey is an excellent story teller. An original story, you will never look at meat the same way again.

MEAT...once you're hooked you can't put it down

I was hooked from the first page and before I knew it I was pounding through the pages, barely remembering to breath. The story maintains a brisk pace as the full horror of the town of Abyrne, a claustrophobic and wretched cage, is revealed. Despite the tempo, D'Lacey takes the time to develop all his characters providing both depth and frivolous embellishments, which allows the reader to empathise with their pitiless lives and chronic fear. This grisly tale left an indelible mark on my psyche, but don't think this is just a superficial attempt to use sickening detail to carry an empty narrative. There is much more to this thought provoking tale, which not only enjoys some brilliant and recognisable insights into fear, but also asks you to consider what for you is an `acceptable' level of suffering.

MEAT BY JOSEPH D'LACEY

What an indelible story. Edgar Allen Poe stories, I still remember, cause me to shudder. Joseph D'Lacey's writing stimulates your mind, churns your stomach and pacifies your spirit. He reveals ugly truths. He suspends your imagination. He demonstrates strength of character, and gives you hope. Horror stories are supposed to be horrible. It was horrific - horrible and terrific. Horror stories are supposed to grip you with fear, it was frightening. It is a horror story which leaves you with vivid images and strong charachters. Write on young man! You are a great story teller. Who needs cayenne pepper or aspirin to get ones blood circulating. I recommend "Meat"

Compelling, scary, unputdownable

This book isn't for the timid, and if you are, take your Gaviscon before settling down to read one of the few books that might change your life. To a vegetarian, the title might put you off; if you eat meat, you may be afraid of being lectured. Neither is the case. I'm vegan and didn't think anything about slaughterhouses or animal empathy could shock me, but I am dazed. Meat doesn't set out with a philosophical agenda, it is a great story, with plenty of action, characters, a post-apocalyptic setting and several threads. I'm not going to summarise the plot. It's enough to say that Harry Harrison's novel, which became the cult film, Soylent Green is for pussy cats compared to Meat. I confess that I didn't initially like the short sections as the story unfolded from the point-of-view of several main characters, but with the pace so rapidly page-turning it isn't a serious complaint. Indeed, there are some fine literary moments inside the narrative. D'Lacey cleverly forces characters to not just step back to contemplate their actions and consequences, but to somehow reach inside, and then outside their psyche in a way I've not met in other novels. For example, speaking of that elusive spark in someone's eyes, but then when they die: `how could you not wonder where that light went?' I hate Joseph D'Lacey because he's created phrases I'd wish I'd written. For example, we've all been to a works' dance where: `The music had a stretched, laboured sound to it, but it made the workers jump and twitch nevertheless.' He has a gift for inverting concepts that is envious. Savour this example: `She stopped moving and listened hard. The silence was alive: like someone downstairs was listening for her, not the other way around.' I am impressed that the end isn't easy to predict even though there is no plot dependency on a twist. Let's say that in my animal activist days, I nearly achieved in practice on the odd livestock farm, and still dream about what this book achieves with a whole futuristic town. This gutsy ambush is delivered cleverly, but not without gallons of gory blood, sometimes friendly blood. Meat is horror, gruesome, and it has a message, whether or not you accept it. It is compelling reading, and it will haunt me forever.

You are what you eat

MEAT is a strangely compelling read. Despite weaknesses in the narrative, it draws the reader in, shows them a bizarre yet intriguing world, and makes them read to the very last page. It's frustrating, though. D'Lacey works hard to make you slowly realise for yourself who the 'cattle' are, but the publishers know no such subtlety--it's practically trumpeted on the cover. There's only one possiblity after that, and you wonder sometimes why D'Lacey doesn't just come out and say it. Saving the revelation for the end, when we've known about it for pages and pages, doesn't work. Art vied with commerce, I suspect, and commerce won. Slaughterman Richard Shanti works the bolt gun, stunning these 'cattle' at the MMP (meat processing plant) day in, day out. They call him 'Ice Pick' because he can look into the cattle's eyes, say a prayer, and stun them without flinching. If he can't sustain this, or conceal his growing interest in the cattle as individuals, he'll be joining them in the slaughter pens. But he can, it seems. He's also being investigated by a Parson from the Church that's vying with MMP for control of the small, isolated town that depends on the slaughterhouse for food--but he doesn't know this. There's a revolution being planned by a small group of dissidents, but it's mostly underground. So what's driving the story? Ultimately, it's the writing. D'Lacey makes you look. The realistic details of the slaughterhouse are at odds with the unlikelihood that a town surrounded by a post-nuclear wasteland would indulge in this highly-inefficient method of food production. There are ten thousand meat animals being fed by cereal grown on arable land that shrinks every year. For me, it just doesn't add up. Also, where does the rice come from? If D'Lacey hadn't worked so hard to convince us of the details, such flaws might more easily be passed over. But on another level, it doesn't matter. We're grounded in the small realities of a fantastic world where it's possible to eschew meat and 'eat God', deriving both nutrition and virtue from light and air. Whether this is genetic mutation, divine intercession or simply self-delusion, doesn't matter. We're not in the real world here--we, and the characters, are inhabiting a fantastical nightmare. Women don't do well in this dystopia. Shanti's wife betrays him for meat, the Parson only gains redemption at the moment of death, and only Shanti's twin daughters are deemed sufficiently worth saving at the end. Unfortunately, they're virtually ciphers. The truly heroic figures are Shanti himself, who runs miles every day to try to expiate his guilt, and Collins, leader of the dissidents. The novel ends with a series of revelations, two of which have been obvious for most of the novel, and one that comes as a complete surprise. As this implies, the novel lacks subtlety. But it's a damn good read, for all that. [Reviewed by Debbie Moorhouse]