 Writers spend hours seeking alternative ways to Show not Tell. In particular horror writers try to avoid the overused knots in stomachs and clichéd tingles up and down spines. For a treasure trove of alternatives read Joseph D’Lacey’s Meat. There are few writers that can follow the Point of View of a character into his doom with gutsy conviction.
Reviewed by Geoff Nelder
Meat
by Joseph D’Lacey
Bloody Books
2008, ISBN: 978-1-905636-15-0, Paperback, 345 pages
This book isn’t for the timid, and if you are, take your antacid medication 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 well-plotted story, with plenty of action, characters, a post-apocalyptic setting and several threads.
It is difficult to summarise the plot without giving away surprises, but it is based in a future where traditional food sources have disappeared. Harry Harrison’s novel, which became the cult film, Soylent Green, is for pussycats 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.’
Writers spend hours seeking alternative ways to Show not Tell. In particular horror writers try to avoid the overused knots in stomachs and clichéd tingles up and down spines. For a treasure trove of alternatives read Joseph D’Lacey’s Meat. There are few writers that can follow the Point of View of a character into his doom with gutsy conviction. This quote follows a man who knows he is going to die horribly, but not yet:
It had all happened so quickly that he couldn’t make space for it in his mind. And yet, his body knew what was coming. It was preparing. He felt the cold in his feet and hands as his blood flow restricted itself to his core. His face felt cold and wet and there was a torsion of the muscles in his stomach. ... Uppermost in his mind was the knowledge that this was a room where he would not die.’
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.
About the reviewer: Geoff Nelder (61) one wife, 2 kids, lives in rural England within easy cycle rides of the Welsh mountains. One humorous thriller novel, Escaping Reality has been published, and his recent novel is a science fiction mystery, Exit, Pursued by Bee, published by Double Dragon Publishing. Other SF/F novels are hungry to be published following a minor deluge of humour, crime and horror short stories. Geoff is an editor for Adventure Books of Seattle, and is a publisher at BeWrite Books.
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