Cows

Rating:
Summary: Sick and Dememted
Review: though a pleasant and nice guy in real life, Matthew Stokoe'simagination is a sick and twisted place indeed. If you're squeamishabout blood, (----) and death, or [especially] if you're a vegetarian, this is not the book for you. Graphic and grim, Cows explores the relationship between Stephen and his mother, his seriously unhinged girlfriend, and his demented co-workers at the slaughterhouse. Stephen discovers a tribe of sentient cows living underneath the slaughterhouse and leads them on a journey of self-discovery. A very visceral and enjoyable book...

Rating:
Summary: Sick Monkey!
Review: though a pleasant and nice guy in real life, Matthew Stokoe'simagination is a sick and twisted place indeed. If you're squeamishabout blood, (----) and death, or [especially] if you're a vegetarian, this is not the book for you. Graphic and grim, Cows explores the relationship between Stephen and his mother, his seriously unhinged girlfriend, and his demented co-workers at the slaughterhouse. Stephen discovers a tribe of sentient cows living underneath the slaughterhouse and leads them on a journey of self-discovery. A very visceral and enjoyable book...

Rating:
Summary: Gruesome Beyond Reason
Review: Whooo Hoooo! This has got to be the most intense book I have ever read. I know I say that with the regularity of a chiming clock, but "Cows" by Matthew Stokoe really takes the cake. Creation Books apparently prints some other extreme titles, probably ones that may be even more visceral than this one, but Stokoe's devastating portrait of a man's need to belong is simply unforgettable. The author has another novel out, called "High Life," that promises to be as unsettling as this story. It may be some time before I muster the necessary fortitude to read that one, though. Yes, "Cows" is that disturbing. There is a warning label on the back cover of the book, if that tells you anything.

"Boy meets Cow," trumpets the back cover, but that is only part of the story. "Cows" relates the pathetic story of Steven, a down on his luck, alienated man living in a disheveled tenement building in England. Steve lives with his dear old mum, a woman so repulsive in appearance and manner that her son refers to her as the "Hagbeast." Our protagonist despises this woman to such an extreme, with a mutual feeling on the part of his mother, that he spends his days and nights in bed with Dog (his crippled pet dog) plotting how to break free from her controlling influences. He is even convinced that his mother is trying to kill him through the obnoxious meals she forces him to eat everyday. There isn't much chance of this momma's boy shedding his chains, as he consistently caves in under his sick whims. The only options for eventual freedom arrives in the form of his new job at the packinghouse and through a potential love affair with Lucy, a girl who lives upstairs.

Problems with these hopes quickly emerge. Lucy is, well, completely insane. She spends her days obsessing about the poisons building up inside every human being. By watching videos of operations and through painful self-examinations, Lucy hopes to discover the location of these internal toxins in order to remove them from her own body. Steven recognizes Lucy's illnesses but fervently hopes that he can create a world where the two will live together, have a child, and mirror the perfect family world he sees on his television set every night. In the meantime, Steve will have to deal with his mother and work at the packinghouse so he can earn money to actualize his visions.

Then there is the job at the slaughterhouse. Steven quickly falls in with Cripps, the head supervisor in the room where they actually kill the cattle. This aberrant human being recognizes Steven's lack of character and starts to indoctrinate him with philosophies about how killing animals imbues men with power in all the other avenues of their lives. Adding to the general madness is the discovery by Steven of a rogue herd of talking cows living underneath the city. These cows escaped from the oily clutches of Cripps and his fellow thugs and are now seeking revenge against the evil men working on the killing floor. Which path will Steven choose? Will he accept Cripps's nauseating, fascistic visions or will he work with the talking cows and purge the world of an evil human being?

Turning a page in this book is like repeatedly dropping an anvil on your head. You are not certain of what you will find on the next page, but you soon discover that it will be so far over the top as to defy description. "Cows" encompasses nearly every anti-social behavior imaginable. There are scatological excesses galore, mind-blowing violence, weirdness on a metatectonic level, and stark examinations of power relationships. There is a message in "Cows," but the crushing amount of gore nearly buries it under a mountain of ground beef.

This is a story about dreams and how environment can crush those gossamer longings. Steven wants to live; he wishes he had a caring mother, a beautiful and loving wife, a nice house, a child, and all the amenities of modern life. He sees the images on television depicting a perfect life and thinks he can achieve these things in his own existence. His difficulties in connecting to society in no way lessen his desire to do so. Steven's internal condition is so fragile and fragmented that he is an easy target for the likes of Cripps, who promises self-realization and authenticity through violence if Steven will only take the plunge. One problem comes when Steven thinks he can save Lucy as well as himself. When his visions of perfection come apart at the seams, when one action towards living the dream requires greater and more violent actions to sustain them, Steven disintegrates and becomes something worse than even Cripps and everything is lost. It does not help that Steven's ideals are built on an illusion anyway, namely the vacuous world of television. He is doomed from the start without even realizing it.

This book does not have a happy, fairy-tale ending. It is rather a series of painful, tentative steps by a man who desperately needs something to live for. I commend Stokoe for weaving such a penetrating vision in a quickly read story. I do not, however, have warm feelings for the passages that almost made me bolt for the bathroom. I have an iron stomach, but "Cows" nearly did me in. Only the stoutest souls need crack the cover on this book.