Animals go mad and men die (accidentally and not) at a slaughterhouse in an impoverished,isolated corner of Brazil.
In a landscape worthy of Cormac McCarthy,the river runs septic with blood. Edgar Wilson makes the sign of the cross on the forehead of a cow,then stuns it with a mallet. He does this over and over again,as the stun operator at Senhor Milo's slaughterhouse: reliable,responsible,quietly dispatching cows and following orders,wherever that may take him. It's important to calm the cows,especially now that they seem so unsettled: they have begun to run in panic into walls and over cliffs. Bronco Gil,the foreman,thinks it's a jaguar or a wild boar. Edgar Wilson has other suspicions. But what is certain is that there is something in this desolate corner of Brazil driving men,and animals,to murder and madness.
Publisher: Charco PressISBN: 9781913867492Number of pages: 99Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
"This short sharp shock of a book brings a surprise with every new page...a fresh and spirited report on how civilisation has done nothing to tame humanity's worst instincts." -The Guardian
"Brutal yet gripping,as if Cormac McCarthy penned an anti-meat noir." -Kirkus
"Intense and provocative....This goes straight for the jugular." -Publishers Weekly
"In Perry's visceral,understated translation...the narrative unfolds with the compulsiveness of a psychological thriller." -The Times Literary Supplement
"Maia's stark style lends her novella a chilling,detached quality,allowing the violence and viscera to be all the more overwhelming." -Jeremy Garber,Powell's Bookshop
"Biblical in scale and language,Of Cattle and Men is a book to squirm beneath; to measure oneself against." -Southwest Review
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