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Summary and Reviews of Pink Slime by Fernanda Trias

Pink Slime by Fernanda Trias

Pink Slime

by Fernanda Trias
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  • First Published:
  • Jul 2, 2024, 240 pages
  • Reviewed by BookBrowse Book Reviewed by:
    Alex Russell
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About This Book

Book Summary

Winner of the Uruguayan National Literature Prize for Fiction, the Bartolomé-Hidalgo Fiction Prize, and the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Literature Prize.

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 unforgettable novel explores the place where love, responsibility, and self-preservation converge, and the beauty and fragility of our most intimate relationships.

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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

The narrative bones of Pink Slime may be those of a straightforward family drama, but Trías enjoys wrapping them in some meaty experimentation. Like the eponymous pink paste, however, the philosophical musings and stylistic flair that pepper her writing are only somewhat nourishing. The novel may touch on all the weightiest contemporary concerns—environmental disaster, democratic backsliding, class inequality—but it's the knotty personal relationships that give it such a strong emotional core. Trías is expert in drawing out the paradoxes of these relationships, stretching the web of love and resentment, obligation and self-preservation in which the narrator finds herself caught. That society is collapsing seems almost incidental...continued

Full Review Members Only (714 words)

(Reviewed by Alex Russell).

Media Reviews

The New York Times
Elegantly translated...a well-imagined, often poetically beautiful plague story.

Variety
Brief and beautifully written…Somber and political, Trías paints a grim but fascinating portrait of a woman who must endure an unthinkable reality.

Locus
A beautiful elegiac meditation on parenting – in this case, the deep connection between a mother and son.

The Guardian
Powerful and beautifully written.

The Irish Times
It's a dystopic work worthy of JG Ballard, where even in hopelessness there remains a flickering shard of hope or resignation.

The Scotsman
This is not a dystopia, but a full-on, technicolor apocalypse... That we are in the company of someone who truly cares makes the horror all the more visceral.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
This is a knockout of a story. Stunning writing makes this a startlingly powerful novel.

Library Journal (starred review)
With her eerie and unnervingly probable plot, strong narrative voice, and focus on the small, beautiful moments of life amid disaster, Trías's tale will continue to haunt readers long after they turn the final page. Pair it with other thoughtful and subtle horror stories such as Sealed by Naomi Booth or Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)
The novel captivates with its increasingly claustrophobic atmosphere, and Trías keenly explores the resentments that fester within a mother-daughter relationship, a failing marriage, and childcare work. Readers will be gripped.

Reader Reviews

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Beyond the Book



Ultra-Processed Foods

Three pale-looking hot dogs on buns, photographed from above Fernanda Trías's Pink Slime takes its title from the nickname of Meatrite, a fictional meat paste developed by the government to combat food shortages during an environmental collapse. Although set in an imagined near future, Trías's Meatrite could easily be inspired by the ultra-processed foods (UPFs) that have come to dominate the 21st-century diet. Once seen as a way to cheaply feed a growing population, UPFs are now linked to an increasing number of chronic conditions, such as asthma and type 2 diabetes.

The roots of UPFs can be traced back to the Great Depression and Second World War, when circumstances dictated populations be fed as cheaply and efficiently as possible. Highly processed products like Spam—...

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Read-Alikes

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