A couple days ago I devoured this in about four hours. It’s an incredible read, but a hard one. It takes place in a world where animals have all contracted a virus that makes consumption of them or contact with their byproducts deadly. So the governments of the world very rapidly institute a policy, the Transition, it’s called, to the breeding and slaughtering of humans for their meat and essential byproducts.

The most poignant and disturbing thing about the book, to me, is not the rather graphic descriptions of humans being processed in a slaughterhouse, but the terminology used for it. They’re not humans, they’re “head” of livestock. Hands and feet are marketed as “trotters.” It’s not human meat, it’s “special meat,” and the main character’s sister makes special kidneys for her kids when he comes to visit. This terminology is legally mandated. If you mess up badly enough, you don’t get executed, you get “processed” at the Municipal Slaughterhouse.

The main character is a man heavily involved in the industry, one of the higher-ups at a slaughterhouse. His job is about securing livestock for slaughter from various sources, and negotiating delivery of product to large buyers. He’s dealing with his father dying of Alzheimer’s and the sudden death of his baby boy, and the estrangement from his wife that ensued. One day, one of his suppliers sends him a gift: a First Generation Pure female head, a human born in captivity for the express purpose of being slaughtered and consumed. But not genetically modified to be meatier or grow faster. High quality product. And his ability to separate the Us from the Them starts to break down, and so does his sanity.

It’s a haunting meditation on patriarchy, the meat industry, propaganda, euphemistic language, dehumanization, and the doublethink required for people to engage with much of the cruelty and hatred and coldness that a world enthralled by capitalism throws their way.