Book Club: September 2024 by Hana Zittel

Book Club
By Hana Zittel
Published Issue 129, September 2024

Pink Slime by Fernanda Trías, Translated by Heather Cleary (2024)

In an era that might seem overwhelmed with plague, epidemic and contagious disease, fiction and reality, Fernanda Trías puts her twist on the genre in her second novel translated into English, Pink Slime. A toxic algae bloom is decimating the environment, resulting in a red wind that blows in from the water on the coast, sickening and killing anyone in its path. “It’s like they’re being … skinned alive. The other day I had to drive one. Left the seat full of flakes, like dandruff, you know? Dry, white, sort of transparent. The wind peels them right down to the muscle.”

As people move further and further inland to escape the wind, an unnamed narrator remains among those who refuse or don’t have the means to move. Tending to her slowly disintegrating relationships, she visits her mother and brings her food, working to mend their relationship, not as easily triggered by her controlling nature or disparaging comments about her choices since the epidemic started. She regularly lingers at the clinic her ex-husband is relegated to, after he, maybe willingly, walked into the wind on purpose. She nannies a young boy, dropped off by his inland-living, wealthy parents, who suffers from a genetic ailment that never allows him to stop eating. His insatiable hunger is so burdensome for his family that they return him to the dangerous coast to be rid of him for stretches of time.

Beyond the toxic wind, another ominous horror plagues this town. A large meat-processing plant that churns out a “pink slime” called Meatrite, that residents who can’t afford otherwise, are forced to subsist on. This factory and its products are intertwined with the jobs, lives and families of everyone on the coast, alluding to a connection between the algae and the horror of the facilities where the “pink slime” is created.

Trías does an elegant job of making a horrifying plague novel feel like an examination of our relationships and how our minds tie to a sense of place, even when we know we need to move on. Graphic and moody, Pink Slime is an atmospheric and introspective take on the plague and pandemic fiction genre. Trías’ first novel translated into English, The Rooftop, was released in 2001.

Ephemera: A Memoir by Briana Loewinsohn (2023)

Muted watercolor and textured pages make up Briana Loewinsohn’s melancholy graphic memoir about growing up with a mother haunted by a deep sadness. Organized by the concerns of the gardener — dirt, water, light — Loewinsohn remembers a childhood spent longing for her mother and the grief of wondering why she and her brother were not enough. She reflects on trying to connect with her and reconciling memories against the only thing that seemed to make her mother happy: spending time with plants in the garden.

Ephemera is a heartbreaking memory of childhood, and the way Loewinsohn moves through this reflection is expressed through a beautifully sorrowful poem and delicate illustration rooted in nature. A subtle graphic memoir, Ephemera is dark, beautiful and an ode to the complexity of memory and love.