Robert Beveridge's Reviews > Cows

Matthew Stokoe, Cows (Creation Books, 1997)

I'm not normally one to preface a review, or even mention in a review, when a book is not appropriate for certain audiences. (I hope to have duped a few of the weak-stomached into reading, say, Peter Sotos or Pan Pantziarka, because they deserve being read). But I'm going to start this one by saying, quite bluntly, Cows is not for everyone. In fact, Cows may not be for anyone. It is scatological, offensive, disgusting, filled to the brim with sex, violence, and sexual violence, and is probably capable of inciting nausea in those who are perfectly capable of sitting through atrocity footage and watch driving school videos for fun.

Cows is also visionary, brilliant, amazingly complex, a must on my ten best reads of the year list, and the second full-length piece of fiction I have finished in less than twenty-four hours this year. It's not only so nasty you can't look away, but it is supremely, blindingly great.

Matthew Stokoe's debut novel can best be summarized as follows. Take a healthy dollop of Horatio Alger (tempered with a dash of Alger Hiss), mix in a good dose of China Mieville's King Rat, a shot of Robert Bloch, add a couple of jiggers of Peter Sotos, ten drams of Camus, two shakes of David Mamet, bung in a couple of PETA ads of the most offensive variety, and then dump the whole mess into a shaker lined with Stewart Home. Shake, chill, and serve over ice cubes laced with LSD, rat poison, and Hideshi Hino films. One taste and you have scraped the tip of the iceberg that is Cows.

Steven, the protagonist, is not a happy person. His paraplegic dog, named Dog, was crippled years back by his mother, known affectionately throughout as the Hagbeast. He's twenty-five years old, and the only time he's left the flat is to run up to the roof and stare out over the city (presumably London) and imagine what life is like for normal people. After the roof got old, he started watching television obsessively, coming to believe that American sitcom families from the fifties led normal lives, and guaging happiness by those standards. As the novel opens, Steven is on his way to his first day of work, ever, at a slaughterhouse. He has a new upstairs neighbor named Lucy, who just moved in and after whom he lusts, a foreman named Cripps who takes maybe a bit too much of a fatherly interest in Steven, and something watching him from the ventilation system in the slaughterhouse.

As if that's not enough, Lucy is convinced that all the poisons in human beings (mucous, excrement, etc.) are to be found in large black lumps mixed in with the organs, and ceaselessly dissects things trying to find them; Steven is convinced the Hagbeast is trying to kill him by feeding him undercooked pork; the thing in the vents is getting more insistent; Cripps wants to teach Steven the ins and outs of cow-killing. Life, to say the least, is a mess for Steven, until everything falls into place at once and he begins to understand who he really is.

(full review too long for goodreads, can be read on Amazon, review date June 21, 2004)