Cannibalism seems to be having a moment in fiction.
asserted
Cannibalism → seem → fiction
In July, the New York Times published an entire feature on recent novels dealing with the subject, including Olivie Blake’s “Girl Dinner,” Ottessa Moshfegh’s “Lapvona” and Agustina Bazterrica’s “Tender Is the Flesh.
asserted
Tender → publish → Dinner
Into this burgeoning sub-genre wades — or, perhaps more accurately, dives headfirst — Brazilian writer Raphael Montes, whose novel “The Secret Dinner” more or less obliterates the line between crime and horror, with a strong dose of satire thrown in.
asserted
novel → burgeon → satire
The title refers to an elite club set up by student roommates in Rio to charge exorbitant amounts for rich people interested in dining on human flesh.
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title → refer → flesh
Medical resident Miguel — with access to a hospital morgue — will supply the meat; aspiring chef Hugo will produce the gourmet meals; perpetually online Piggy will be in charge of viral marketing; and Dante, the book’s narrator, will work the front of house.
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Dante → supply → house
That’s to say nothing of Cora, a chainsaw-wielding sex worker who acts as in-house butcher.
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who → ’ → butcher
Montes takes full advantage of his scenario to deliver scenes that are simultaneously gruesome and hilarious as the business spirals out of its creators’ control.
asserted
business → take → control
The author uses his premise to critique the practice of meat-eating generally, but to his credit, keeps the moralizing on the level of subtext, preferring to focus on wringing every ounce of queasy pleasure out of his bizarre tale.
asserted
author → use → tale
The Queen of Florida
Jeff Bercuson
ECW Press, 219 pages, $24.95
Retired widow June makes a break for the Florida city of Boca Raton to provide herself some much-needed calm and an escape from her junkie son, Jimmy.
asserted
June → retire → son
She thinks she’s discovered paradise, until Jimmy comes knocking on her door, then summarily disappears.
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Jimmy → think → door
June hires a skeezy private detective named Hank to look into her son’s whereabouts and very quickly finds herself entangled with some of the shadiest characters in Boca’s seedy underbelly.
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herself → hire → underbelly
There is Raymond, a career criminal who operates a restaurant as a front; Vincent, Raymond’s chef, who moonlights as hired muscle; and Marty, a corrupt cop.
asserted
who → be → muscle
What appears at first like a typical Florida thriller in the vein of Carl Hiaasen and John D. MacDonald reveals itself to be a work of blazing originality, largely thanks to first-time author Bercuson’s bracing narrative style.
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appears → appear → style
The prose, stripped to its bones, unfurls in a repetitive, almost incantatory rhythm: “The dead man is a message and the message is meant for him.
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message → strip → him
Toronto writer Bercuson drives his serpentine plot forward via tightly calibrated scenes and note-perfect dialogue married to an elliptical, almost parsimonious technique (none of the characters have surnames, for example).
asserted
none → drive → example
The final product, which reads like a collaboration between Samuel Beckett and Elmore Leonard, is one of this year’s most invigorating and unexpected debuts.
asserted
which → read → debuts
The Truth About Ruby Cooper
Liz Nugent
Simon & Schuster, 336 pages, $25.99
Irish author Liz Nugent returns with a surpassingly dark psychological thriller about the eponymous woman, who grows up in the shadow of her beautiful, seemingly perfect older sister, Erin.
asserted
who → return → sister
The Coopers live a comfortable life in Boston, where their father works as a preacher and makes money as an investment broker.
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father → live → broker
That life is shattered when Ruby, at age 16, has an encounter with Milo, Erin’s boyfriend.
asserted
Ruby → shatter → Milo
The fallout from what Ruby will only refer to afterward as “the incident” upends the lives of everybody it touches.
asserted
it → refer → everybody
Nugent has a strong command of pace and suspense, doling out information piecemeal in sections narrated alternately by Ruby, Erin and other more secondary figures.
asserted
Nugent → have → Ruby
The novel’s tension arises not out of what happened — that becomes clear relatively early — but in how various characters with limited or incomplete information interpret events and how those erroneous conclusions ripple across the years.
asserted
conclusions → arise → years
Erin, who later in life rediscovers her passion to be a writer, says at one point, “I knew publishers wanted to label their books, and I didn’t fit into any box, or I fit into too many of them.”
It’s hard not to read this as a metafictional comment by Nugent about her own novel, which blurs the line between a genre thriller and a more literary examination of families, the nature of truth and the ravages of addiction.
asserted
which → rediscover → addiction
That she manages to successfully keep her book working on so many different levels is a testament to Nugent’s skill and confidence, while her mastery of the genre elements keeps the pages turning ever more rapidly as the story barrels toward its breathless conclusion.
asserted
story → manage → conclusion
William Morrow, 320 pages, $39
Bestselling author Linwood Barclay provides his own take on family melodrama in his 26th novel.
asserted
Barclay → bestselle → novel
“Not a Word” opens with Reece Chartwell, the son of a former pharmaceutical salesman, discovering what appear to be the bodies of his father and mother shot dead in their bedroom.
asserted
what → open → bedroom
What looks like a straightforward murder-suicide turns out to be more complicated, and soon Reece, his wife Diana and his addict brother Holden are bucking local detective Janice McCabe in trying to uncover the truth.
Barclay invests his novel with multiple crimes in both the present and the past, interleaving a story of family secrets with a disparaging look at the deadly malfeasance of Big Pharma.
asserted
Barclay → look → Pharma
The father worked for a pharmaceutical giant called Wiffel-Smith, which marketed a painkiller called Oxy-Mirac — a clear nod to both Perdue Pharma (suppliers of OxyContin) and, more locally, the unsolved murders of Barry and Honey Sherman.
asserted
which → work → Sherman
The novel features a venal company head, an employee whistleblower and a company fixer whose diminutive stature and balding pate belie a penchant for extreme violence.
asserted
stature → feature → violence
There’s a lot going on here, and it doesn’t all pan out in a completely satisfying way.
asserted
it → ’ → way
But Barclay is such a pro that readers will likely exhaust themselves turning the pages before that realization even sets in.
asserted
realization → exhaust → pages
The Aporia
