Argentina: Tender is the flesh by augustina Bazterrica

horrors across borders: Argentina

As stated in my previous blog, one of the things on my reading bucket-list is to read a horror book from every country. I started with Argentina, which brought me to the popular Tender Is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica. I've been hearing about it all over social media. Here are some thoughts.

A mysterious disease has made animal meat unsafe to eat, which leads to farming people like cattle in order to get meat. Bazterrica doesn’t rely on jump-scares or anything supernatural. Instead, she presents a society where morality has been crossed so completely that almost no one questions it anymore. The horror comes from watching ordinary people treat the unimaginable as routine.

The most disturbing aspect is how industrialized the entire process feels. Humans are no longer people, but livestock–raised, processed, and sold. The slaughterhouses are described with an unsettling matter-of-factness, emphasizing efficiency and routine. Workers clock in, complete their jobs, and head home. Yes, there is some gore, but it didn’t feel over the top. The biggest shock comes from normalization.  That normalization is what makes the novel so effective. Bazterrica doesn't ask, "What if people ate people?" She asks, "What if society simply accepted it?"

Our protagonist is Marcos Tejo. He works within the very system that horrifies him, and his secret relationship with a woman (He names her Jasmine) bred specifically for consumption gradually provides plot and rising tension. Marcos has to maintain secrecy in his relationship with her. This raises the question: if someone can be loved and treated with tenderness, how can they simultaneously be considered nothing more than meat? Marcos' emotional struggle exposes just how fragile the society's carefully constructed justifications really are.

Another interesting aspect of this book is the question around the disease itself. Bazterrica peppers hints and inconsistencies to make readers wonder if the disease really existed at all, or whether it was simply the justification to reshape society around an entirely new economy. Whether that is true ultimately matters less than the fact that people are willing to accept the official narrative without question. In that sense, Tender Is the Flesh becomes more than a horror novel about cannibalism. It's a novel about propaganda, normalization, and humanity's frightening ability to adapt to almost any atrocity if it's presented as necessary.

Thoughts on the ending (SPOILERS)
At the end, Marcos ends up killing the woman he had a relationship with, and everyone has their own thoughts about it. My thoughts, take them or leave them. Marcos does tend to provide somewhat of a moral compass, but he doesn’t ever take a strong stance against any of this, yet his relationship with Jasmine advances. He cares for her and he even gets her pregnant. We are ended with a bit of an unexplained ending when he kills her, and seems to fully accept the new, cannibalistic world after that decision. 

Bazterrica is a vegetarian (not a vegan), so there’s likely a connection to that. It should be noted that she became a vegetarian in 2014 after viewing the film Earthlings, which portrays animal abuse in the meat industry. Part of the book could be considered a comparison to how the meat industry operates. 

When asked if this is a statement about eating meat, she back pedals on it. Bazterrica claims that this book is a more broad critique of violence and consumerism, and how society can normalize hostility toward the people who are most vulnerable.

As my first stop on this global horror journey, Tender Is the Flesh sets a very high bar–disturbing, thought-provoking, and bleak—not because of graphic violence alone, but because it forces readers to think about how easily morality can erode when enough people agree to look the other way. I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time.

My next stop will be in spain with Virgina feito’s victorian psycho.

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8.5/10