3. The Meat Quarry represents a forbidden place to Cassie for much of the book. When she’s finally allowed into the Meat Quarry, it turns out she’s excellent at harvesting. What did you think the Meat Quarry represented? How did the Meat Quarry function as both a place and a character in the novel?
4. Cassie’s relationship with her father is much warmer than that with her mother. They laugh and joke, despite his drinking. Does Cassie have a real relationship with her father, or are they more like friends? What role does his death play—and why does it impact her so greatly?
5. Throughout the book, Cassie is haunted by visions of another life—one which she describes as better than her current life. However, those visions often veer into the horrifying. How did her visions drive the story for you? What impact did they have on your understanding of her as a character? Which visions were the most impactful?
6. After Cassie moves to the city, she is forced to adjust her understanding of the world. How does this change in location impact her mentality? What does the city represent to Cassie? Have you ever moved to a new place and felt the same displacement Cassie faces?
7. Cassie’s relationship with men throughout the book is marked with assault, rejection, and finally love. How do these different experiences shape her as a person? Does her relationship with Henry represent real love, imaginary love, or flawed love? How does love function throughout the book as a part of Cassie’s life? Do you relate to her experiences? Are there right or wrong ways to love someone?
8. After her surgery, Cassie believes her life will improve. How does Cassie’s relationship to her body change or stay the same after surgery? Is there any marked difference in her life? How is her surgery a rejection of her lineage? How are our bodies a reflection of ourselves—and how are they not?
9. Surrealism plays a major part in the portrayal of Cassie’s life. How did you respond to this technique? What imagery or scenes resonated with you? How did surrealism help or hurt the plot of the novel?
10. The death of Cassie’s father leads to the final outcome of the book. Why was his death such a pivotal moment for her? How could she have faced her own pain differently?
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ALSO AVAILABLE
Here are some other titles you might want to dig into.
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TRIANGULUM NOVEL BY MASANDE NTSHANGA
“Magnificently disorienting and meticulously constructed, Triangulum couples an urgent subtext with an unceasing sense of mystery. This is a thought-provoking dream of a novel, situated within thought-provoking contexts both fictional and historical.” —Tobias Carroll, Tor.com
AN AMBITIOUS, OFTEN PHILOSOPHICAL AND GENRE-BENDING NOVEL that covers a period of over 40 years in South Africa’s recent past and near future.
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THE WORD FOR WOMAN IS WILDERNESS NOVEL BY ABI ANDREWS
“Unlike any published work I have read, in ways that are beguiling, audacious...” —Sarah Moss, The Guardian
THIS IS A NEW KIND OF NATURE WRITING — one that crosses fiction with science writing and puts gender politics at the center of the landscape.
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AWAY! AWAY! NOVEL BY JANA BEŇOVÁ TRANSLATED BY JANET LIVINGSTONE
Winner of the European Union Prize for Literature
“Beňová’s short, fast novels are a revolution against normality. ”
—Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, ORF
WITH MAGNETIC, SPARKLING PROSE, Beňová delivers a lively mosaic that ruminates on human relationships, our greatest fears and desires.
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THE DEEPER THE WATER THE UGLIER THE FISH NOVEL BY KATYA APEKINA
2018 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
“Brilliantly structured... refreshingly original, and the writing is nothing short of gorgeous. It’s a stunningly accomplished book.” —NPR
POWERFULLY CAPTURES THE QUIET TORMENT of two sisters craving the attention of a parent they can’t, and shouldn’t, have to themselves.
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THE BLURRY YEARS NOVEL BY ELEANOR KRISEMAN
“Kriseman’s is a new voice to celebrate.”
—Publishers Weekly
THE BLURRY YEARS IS A POWERFUL and unorthodox coming-of-age story from an assured new literary voice, featuring a stirringly twisted mother-daughter relationship, set against the sleazy, vividlydrawn backdrop of late-seventies and early-eighties Florida.
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THE UNDERNEATH NOVEL BY MELANIE FINN
“The Underneath is an excellent thriller.” —Star Tribune
THE UNDERNEATH IS AN INTELLIGENT and considerate exploration of violence— both personal and social—and whether violence may ever be justified. With the assurance and grace of her acclaimed novel The Gloaming, Melanie Finn returns with a precisely layered and tense new literary thriller.
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PALACES NOVEL BY SIMON JACOBS
“Palaces is robust, both current and clairvoyant… With a pitch-perfect portrayal of the punk scene and idiosyncratic, meaty characters, this is a wonderful novel that takes no prisoners.” —Foreword Reviews, starred review
WITH INCISIVE PRECISION and a cool detachment, Simon Jacobs has crafted a surreal and spellbinding first novel of horror and intrigue.
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THEY CAN’T KILL US UNTIL THEY KILL US ESSAYS BY HANIF ABDURRAQIB
Best Books 2017: NPR, Buzzfeed, Paste Magazine, Esquire, Chicago Tribune, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, CBC (Canada), Stereogum, National Post (Canada), Entropy, Heavy, Book Riot, Chicago Review of Books (November), The Los Angeles Review, Michigan Daily
“Funny, painful, precise, desperate, and loving throughout. Not a day has sounded the same since I read him.”
—Greil Marcus, Village Voice
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WHITE DIALOGUES STORIES BENNETT SIMS
“Anyone who admires such pyrotechnics of language will find 21st-century echoes of Edgar Allan Poe in Sims’ portraits of paranoia and delusion, with their zodiacal narrowing and the maddening tungsten spin of their narratives.”
—New York Times Book Review
IN THESE ELEVEN STORIES, Sims moves from slow-burn psychological horror to playful comedy, bringing us into the minds of people who are haunted by their environments, obsessions, and doubts.
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FOUND AUDIO NOVEL BY N.J. CAMPBELL
“[A] mysterious work of metafiction… dizzying, arresting and defiantly bold.” —Chicago Tribune
“This strange little book, full of momentum, intrigue, and weighty ideas to mull over, is a bona fide literary pageturner.” —Publishers Weekly, “Best Summer Books, 2017”
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SEEING PEOPLE OFF NOVEL BY JANA BEŇOVÁ TRANSLATED BY JANET LIVINGSTONE
Winner of the European Union Prize for Literature
“A fascinating novel. Fans of inward-looking postmodernists like Clarice Lispector will find much to admire.” —NPR
A KALEIDOSCOPIC, POETIC, AND DARKLY FUNNY portrait of a young couple navigating post-socialist Slovakia.
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THE DROP EDGE OF YONDER NOVEL BY RUDOLPH WURLITZER
“One of the most interesting voices in American fiction.”
—Rolling Stone
AN EPIC ADVENTURE that explores the truth and temptations of the American myth, revealing one of America’s most transcendant writers at the top of his form.
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THE VINE THAT ATE THE SOUTH NOVEL BY J.D. WILKES
“Undeniably one of the smartest, most original Southern Gothic novels to come along in years.” —NPR
WITH THE ENERGY AND UNIQUE VISION that established him as a celebrated musician, Wilkes here is an accomplished storyteller on a Homeric voyage that strikes at the heart of American mythology.
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SIRENS MEMOIR BY JOSHUA MOHR
A Best of 2017
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Raw-edged and whippet-thin, Sirens swings from tales of bawdy addiction to charged moments of a father struggling to stay clean.”
—Los Angeles Times
WITH VULNERABILITY, GRIT, AND HARD-WON HUMOR, Mohr returns with his first book-length work of non-fiction, a raw and big-hearted chronicle of substance abuse, relapse, and family compassion.
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THE GLOAMING NOVEL BY MELANIE FINN
New York Times Notable Book of 2016
“Deeply satisfying.” —New York Times Book Review
AFTER AN ACCIDENT LEAVES her estranged in a Swiss town, Pilgrim Jones absconds to east Africa, settling in a Tanzanian outpost where she can’t shake the unsettling feeling that she’s being followed.
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THE INCANTATIONS OF DANIEL JOHNSTON GRAPHIC NOVEL BY RICARDO CAVOLO WRITTEN BY SCOTT MCCLANAHAN
“Wholly unexpected, grotesque, and poignant.” —The FADER
RENOWNED ARTIST RICARDO CAVOLO and Scott McClanahan combine talents in this dazzling, eye-popping graphic biography of artist and musician Daniel Johnston.
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THE REACTIVE NOVEL BY MASANDE NTSHANGA
A Best Book of 2016 —Men’s Journal, Flavorwire, City Press, The Sunday Times, The Star, This is Africa, Africa’s a Country, Sunday World
“Often teems with a beauty that seems to carry on in front of its glue-huffing wasters despite themselves.” —Slate
A CLEAR-EYED, COMPASSIONATE ACCOUNT of a young HIV+ man grappling with the sudden death of his brother in South Africa.
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SQUARE WAVE NOVEL BY MARK DE SILVA
“Compelling and horrifying.” —Chicago Tribune
A GRAND NOVEL OF ideas and compelling crime mystery, about security states past and present, weather modification science, micro-tonal music, and imperial influences.
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NOT DARK YET NOVEL BY BERIT ELLINGSEN
“Fascinating, surreal, gorgeously written.”
—BuzzFeed
ON THE VERGE OF a self-inflicted apocalypse, a former military sniper is enlisted by a former lover for an eco-terrorist action that threatens the quiet life he built for himself in the mountains.
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THE GLACIER NOVEL BY JEFF WOOD
“Gorgeously and urgently written.”
—Library Journal, starred review
FOLLOWING A CATERER AT a convention center, a surveyor residing in a storage unit, and the masses lining up for an Event on the horizon, The Glacier is a poetic rendering of the pre-apocalypse.
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HAINTS STAY NOVEL BY COLIN WINNETTE
“In his astonishing portrait of American violence, Colin Winnette makes use of the Western genre to stunning effect.” —Los Angeles Times
HAINTS STAY IS A NEW Acid Western in the tradition of Rudolph Wurlitzer, Meek’s Cutoff, and Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man: meaning it is brutal, surreal, and possesses an unsettling humor.
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THE ONLY ONES NOVEL BY CAROLA DIBBELL
Best Books 2015: Washington Post; O, The Oprah Magazine; NPR
“Breathtaking.” —NPR
INEZ WANDERS A POST-PANDEMIC world immune to disease. Her life is altered when a grief-stricken mother that hired her to provide genetic material backs out, leaving Inez with the product: a baby girl.
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BINARY STAR NOVEL BY SARAH GERARD
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
Best Books 2015: BuzzFeed, Vanity Fair, NPR
“Rhythmic, hallucinatory, yet vivid as crystal.” —NPR
AN ELEGIAC, INTENSE PORTRAIT of two young lovers as they battle their personal afflictions while on a road trip across the U.S.
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THE ABSOLUTION OF ROBERTO ACESTES LAING NOVEL BY NICHOLAS ROMBES
“Kafka directed by David Lynch doesn’t even come close.” —3:AM Magazine
A RARE-FILM LIBRARIAN mysteriously burned his entire stockpile of film canisters and disappeared. Years later, a journalist tracks the forgotten man down to a motel on the fringe of the Wisconsin wilds.
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