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 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. Yet as conditions outside deteriorate further, her commitment to remaining in place only grows – even if staying means being left behind.
A well-imagined, often poetically beautiful plague story ... Trías’s protagonist is the shadow in all of us — the passive subject, suspended in the limbo of indecision, who cannot act to save herself.
Pink Slime is an unsettling book, and not least because, while reading it, I had to idea where it was going to go ... Cleverly, the links between conditions, illness and the churn of the world are never made explicit. That we are in the company of someone who truly cares makes the horror all the more visceral ... Pink Slime kept me guessing; but the guesswork is far less important than the emotional heft of it.
This is a vividly claustrophobic world, stuffed with strong smells, tastes and pressing hunger ... In Heather Cleary’s thoughtful, poetic translation, it is through exploring the connections between people, places and things that Pink Slime is at its best.
