Carnivore Diet

Book Description

Critics

• Carnivore Diet

  Carnivore Diet Julia Slavin W.W. Norton Hardcover 296 pages July 2005 Julia Slavin is inordinately clever, her skewed take on suburban Washington, D.C., full of mind-boggling images and the tensions of today's reality. Wendy Dunleavy is in a quandary ... (read full critics)

  curledup published on Tue, 7 Sep 2010

• Carnivore Diet

  Carnivore Diet, the first novel by Julia Slavin, takes place in a world in which post-apocalyptic disasters coexist in bland equipoise with everyday banalities like barbecues and marital infidelity. The carnivore of the title is a monster called a “c ... (read full critics)

  believermag published on Mon, 6 Sep 2010

1 Review

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  Reading Carnivore Diet

  Julia Slavin's Carnivore Diet is evocative of a series of dream sequences. The story unfolds through the point of view of two characters - Dylan Dunleavy and his mother Wendy. Things begin as we become acquainted with Dylan, a teenager who has a job voicing a cartoon rat. Trouble is, his voice has g ... (continue)

  Julia Slavin's Carnivore Diet is evocative of a series of dream sequences. The story unfolds through the point of view of two characters - Dylan Dunleavy and his mother Wendy. Things begin as we become acquainted with Dylan, a teenager who has a job voicing a cartoon rat. Trouble is, his voice has gotten too deep and he cannot continue playing the character, a boy. That's not the crux of the story, though. Things get going when Dylan tells the reader about a mythical creature known as the chagwa. Oddly, attacks taking place in his neighborhood bear a strong similarity to those supposed to have been done by the chagwa.

  When the perspective switches to Wendy's, we get substantially more detail. She and Dylan have been left alone in their home as their father/husband is in jail for apparent improprieties committed as a senator. Problems get worse when the chagwa becomes real in their neighborhood, and sets its appetite on Dylan. Wendy medicates to cope, and Dylan is left in the lurch as he stresses about his lost job and the fact that he is the prey of choice for a creature that seems impossible to destroy.

  The book is compelling and almost impossible to put down until the final act, when things take a turn for the weird. It's probably strange to say that things turn weird in a book that is entirely odd to begin with. And yet, the abrupt change in tone just doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the book.

  I still definitely recommend Carnivore Diet for anyone who is interested in fresh female voices in fiction. If the concept of the chagwa intrigues you, the book will definitely be rewarding.

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  moogle said on Apr 7, 2007 | Add your feedback

Book Details

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• English Books
• Hardcover 296 Pages
• ISBN-10: 0393059987
• ISBN-13: 9780393059984
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Pub date: Jul 18, 2005
• Dimensions: 1355 mm x 903 mm x 194 mm Just how big is that?
• Also available as: Paperback

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