Pink Slime: A Novel
Longlisted for the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD for Translated Literature • Named a BEST BOOK of 2024 by NPR, Esquire, Publishers Weekly, and ScreenRant • “The disconcerting familiarity of this strange, windswept world will haunt you.” —Esquire
A hair-raising, poetic novel about a woman and the people who depend on her as the world around them edges toward apocalypse.
In a city ravaged by a mysterious plague, a woman tries to understand why her world is falling apart. An algae bloom has poisoned the previously pristine air that blows in from the sea. Inland, a secretive corporation churns out the only food anyone can afford—a revolting pink paste, made of an unknown substance. In the short, desperate breaks between deadly windstorms, our narrator stubbornly tends to her few remaining relationships: with her difficult but vulnerable mother; with the ex-husband for whom she still harbors feelings; with the boy she nannies, whose parents sent him away even as terrible threats loomed. Yet as conditions outside deteriorate further, her commitment to remaining in place only grows—even if staying means being left behind.
An evocative elegy for a safe, clean world, Pink Slime is buoyed by humor and its narrator’s resiliency. This vivid and unforgettable novel explores the place where love, responsibility, and self-preservation converge.
A hair-raising, poetic novel about a woman and the people who depend on her as the world around them edges toward apocalypse.
In a city ravaged by a mysterious plague, a woman tries to understand why her world is falling apart. An algae bloom has poisoned the previously pristine air that blows in from the sea. Inland, a secretive corporation churns out the only food anyone can afford—a revolting pink paste, made of an unknown substance. In the short, desperate breaks between deadly windstorms, our narrator stubbornly tends to her few remaining relationships: with her difficult but vulnerable mother; with the ex-husband for whom she still harbors feelings; with the boy she nannies, whose parents sent him away even as terrible threats loomed. Yet as conditions outside deteriorate further, her commitment to remaining in place only grows—even if staying means being left behind.
An evocative elegy for a safe, clean world, Pink Slime is buoyed by humor and its narrator’s resiliency. This vivid and unforgettable novel explores the place where love, responsibility, and self-preservation converge.
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Community Reviews
(in translation) Trias' prose is lush and compelling. But in this book about climate disaster, there is not much direction: no compelling goal, no push forward. It was more like swirling down the drain. The story as well as the main character are stuck between the wallow of the past and fear of the future. The characters are well-drawn and fully realized, even compelling, but the reader is left following a thread of events that seems to taper off into fog and red wind. People are fleeing the lethal pollution and disease sweeping in from the sea, but our main main character is in no hurry to leave. She clings to the people who have hurt her and seems helpless to find a more healthful environment. There's ambiguity built into many of Trias' sentences, too, as paragraphs that begin in past tense slide into the future, as if the action is a matter of conjecture -- perhaps it happened, perhaps it didn't.
The odd thing about this book is that it's so completely about the characters, the miasma of pollution poisoning the town hardly seems to matter, except as a slightly scary inconvenience. It seems that the sci-fi dystopian setting is really just another metaphor for a life stuck in a poisonous atmosphere. I think a lot of people who enjoy literary fiction and lush writing will like this book. I loved passages and certain descriptions, but overall, I found the book somewhat boring as well as downbeat.
This is a haunting novel about a society on the brink of apocalyptic collapse, faced with erratic threats from an environmental disaster no one quite understands, but could realistically happen to us at any time. It's interlaced with themes of relationship strain and challenges the idea that under such a threat, we are actually in a worse situation than before, given shallow interactions and existential threats we create for ourselves when we're not under actual threat. I can best describe it as heavy and somber, like trudging through a bout of depression. There are few highs and lows, just a constant impending sense of doom. By the time the narrator begins the story, it feels as if she is already numb to the emotions of human connection and is solely focused on daily survival.
As a reader, we have to ask ourselves if this is the same reaction we'd have when faced with a slow-moving catastrophe. Essentially, we're left with lots of prompts for self-reflection. It's definitely worth the read, but prepare to be in a state of melancholy the entire time. In fact, reading this book is a prime example of how we might create our own existential threats while existing in relative comfort. This is the type of story that follows you long after you put it down.
Disclaimer: I work for the publisher of this title, Simon & Schuster. All opinions are my own.
As a reader, we have to ask ourselves if this is the same reaction we'd have when faced with a slow-moving catastrophe. Essentially, we're left with lots of prompts for self-reflection. It's definitely worth the read, but prepare to be in a state of melancholy the entire time. In fact, reading this book is a prime example of how we might create our own existential threats while existing in relative comfort. This is the type of story that follows you long after you put it down.
Disclaimer: I work for the publisher of this title, Simon & Schuster. All opinions are my own.
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