Pink Slime - Fernanda Trías

Longlisted for the 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD for Translated Literature - Evocative, dreamlike, and immersive...The disconcerting familiarity of this strange, windswept world will haunt you. --Esquire \nA harrowing, intimate novel about a woman and the people who depend on her as the world around them teeters on the edge--marking an award-winning Latin American author's US debut. \n \nIn a city ravaged by a mysterious plague, a woman tries to understand why her world is falling apart. An algae bloom has poisoned the previously pristine 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: with her difficult but vulnerable mother; with the ex-husband for whom she still harbors feelings; with the boy she nannies, whose parents sent him away even as terrible threats loomed. Yet as conditions outside deteriorate further, her commitment to remaining in place only grows--even if staying means being left behind. \n \nAn evocative elegy for a safe, clean world, Pink Slime is buoyed by humor and its narrator's resiliency. This vivid and unforgettable novel explores the place where love, responsibility, and self-preservation converge.\n