I can't believe it's taken me so long to mention this! Clearly, I am a bit lame when it comes to promotional stuff. Eep!
In August, the wonderful naturalist and nature-writer and all-round Aussie treasure Tanya Loos dedicated an entire post to writing about Beef, delving deeply into the story itself, but also discussing the power of literature as activism. It's great for me to see just what people get out of it, which particular aspects of the book touch people and what they think I'm saying, and what resonates and what doesn't. And I really think Tanya gets it.
Regarding the activism at the novel's core, she mentions that "our modern civilisation’s dirty secret is the true cost of cheap meat", and goes on to say "[b]ut Beef explores an alternate reality, the sort of world where the
treatment of animals in this way is morally repugnant, and it reflects
on the past in a very light-hearted and easy to read way. Without
lecturing!" Exactly what I was after!
Her review includes lovely little summations like this:
"Royston is going through the motions of life in his eccentric family, and happy with his wife Lena and his daughter River. Until BAM! Gene enters his life. Royston falls head over heels for this luscious embodiment of womanhood and the two strike up a very close friendship that oozes with sexual tension and causes a fuckload of consternation for Royston. I say fuckload because if you don’t like swearing you are in for a challenging read."
"Royston is going through the motions of life in his eccentric family, and happy with his wife Lena and his daughter River. Until BAM! Gene enters his life. Royston falls head over heels for this luscious embodiment of womanhood and the two strike up a very close friendship that oozes with sexual tension and causes a fuckload of consternation for Royston. I say fuckload because if you don’t like swearing you are in for a challenging read."
(I do love a good swear. In fact, I have an in-depth piece about swearing on this very blog.)
"I think it works equally well as a love story or as science fiction, or
speculative fiction, indeed Beef reminds me very much of one of my
favourite authors, Margaret Atwood, just with more swearing!"
High praise indeed! :)
Thanks Tanya! The entire review can be read on Tanya's website, here.
