***Content warning: This article discusses cannibalism***

It’s not everyday that a generational social commentary also doubles as a sober and gutting rendition of your worst nightmares, but that is exactly what fell into my lap when I finally succumbed to the umpteenth recommendation of “Tender is the Flesh” by Augustina Bazterrica. This book is what happens when an author peeks behind the human veil and refuses to pull away when things get ugly.

We are immediately thrust into a world where a virus renders all animals inedible, and cannibalism is not just legalized, but mandated. Marcos, an employee at a human flesh processing plant, is our periscope into the hellish society that preserves the privileged class by slaughtering the poor.

The gore is not here for the shock value, however. The deepest meaning can be found in the consumption of the slaughtered by the privileged class, and the more time you spend in this world, the commentary on social inequality, environmental racism, and full scale genocide become clear as day.

In Marcos’s world, the consumption of human flesh is not at all utilitarian. That is, it’s not even regarded as a necessary evil, but a reveled one. Bazterrica puts the work in to establish the lengths that the government has gone through to ensure the upper class does not see the victims as people, and we drop into the story long after propagandic language has done its damage. This is not a story of remorse; it’s a looking glass into what happens when we abandon remorse.

While the book is bleak and unforgiving, the characters themselves are still marred by grief, though it’s not guaranteed that they will find their own humanity through it. Marcos struggles with multiple accounts of grief from the start of the book, and his grappling throughout the story speaks to how cognitive dissonance and compartmentalization go hand in hand regarding trauma. 

Part of this compartmentalization is tangibly explained by the uncompromising policing of language by a fascist government.

“Heads” are people bred for consumption, while we’re introduced to the consuming class as “first and last name” people. Throughout “Tender is the Flesh”, language is not just a state mandate, but directly represents weaponized apathy towards lower caste members while ostracizing any trace of humanizing language.

It’s worth mentioning that the unleashing of violence has not lessened the grip the government has on its people. Films like “The Purge” posit a world where peace is found through intensely condensing violence to a single day, but “Tender is the Flesh” gives us no hope for peace. Humans have simply adapted to the violence, and are saved by nothing.

The bleakness seems to be the point. Each turn of unforgiving gore and terror drags the reader to the edge of human behavior and puts on display what is left when we extract humanity from the humans. It’s not just humans breaking down others for food, but an entire industry breaking down humanity itself. When one person consumes another, he is no longer a person, but a machine of empty indulgence.

In exploring humanity’s unfathomable depths, Augustina Bazterrica wields the most taboo subject matters with masterful intent, and she manages to take something unreadable and dare you to put it down.

Liv Lyons has been an editor for the Thunderword since 2023. Their short story blog, “Loser Pulp“, is released twice a month.