"Propulsive and deranged, Tender Is the Flesh is a weird and quick read that strays far enough from our current reality to be utterly engrossing. An unrelentingly dark and disquieting look at the way societies conform to committing atrocities.” “It is a testament to Bazterrica’s skill that such a bleak book can also be a page-turner. "A ruthlessly clever, Orwellian satire of our dog-eat-dog, er, man-eat-man modern world."
“Taut and thought-provoking.a chilling and alarmingly prophetic book.this is an urgent cautionary tale.timely, crucial.” "The novel is horrific, yes, but fascinatingly provocative (and Orwellian) in the way it exposes the lengths society will go to deform language and avoid moral truths." “From the first words of the Argentine novelist Agustina Bazterrica’s second novel, Tender Is the Flesh, the reader is already the livestock in the line, reeling, primordially aware that this book is a butcher’s block, and nothing that happens next is going to be pretty.” WINNER OF ARGENTINA’S CLARÍN NOVELA PRIZE 2017 Agent: Johanna Castillo, Writers House.PRAISE FOR TENDER IS THE FLESH BY AGUSTINA BAZTERRICA Though the author leans a bit much on shock value, she adds depth to the strange and eerie atmosphere with recurring themes of religion and death (“She wants to be the divine abode in which the sacred is housed,” Bazterrica writes of the self-sacrificing Ada). Here, Bazterrica writes mordantly of the strange compulsion to visit decrepit cemeteries such as the one where Sandoz is buried: “People are capable of anything to dissipate the monotony of their lives.” Even the lighter entries are strangely unsettling, such as “No Tears,” about a family renowned for never crying who attend funerals to make the bereaved laugh.
In “Elena-Marie Sandoz,” a B-movie actor dies by suicide after receiving a series of letters encouraging her to do so. In “The Continuous Equality of the Circumference,” an allegory of perfection taken to the extreme, protagonist Ada transforms her body into the shape of a circle, first by gaining weight and then by cutting off her arms and legs. “Roberto,” the brief and off-kilter opener, features a schoolgirl with a bunny growing between her legs who’s preyed upon by her math teacher. In Argentine writer Bazterrica’s provocative collection (after the novel Tender Is the Flesh), scenes of fantastical metamorphoses add a touch of levity to disturbing chronicles of self-mutilation and suicide.
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