Cows

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I will mention just one: the main character breaks off his mother’s teeth, fixes his anus over her bleeding mouth, and shits, forcing her to eat. In fact, this book is so good at creating a warped, immersive reality of its own—inside our protagonist, Steven’s head—that I can wholeheartedly say I absolutely loved it. I was led to this book by various reviews that said things like “the most extreme novel you’ll ever read” (from the back cover copy), “gruesome beyond reason,” “most intense book I have ever read,” “most gruesome book I have ever read,” “I almost felt like I was doing something wrong reading it. Certainly this book, with its nonstop brutality and descriptions of repulsive sensory experiences, attempts to desensitize the reader much as the main character in this story becomes desensitized and becomes a serial killer.

The real world resides in the light of television, where lives are organized and people know exactly what to do. Steven’s dog named Dog crawls around half paralyzed, legs out like a wheelbarrow, the result of his mother chucking a brick. That one day, he’ll have a home that is filled with happiness and some aspect of his life will have meaning. Cripps who has this insatiable sexual fatherly taste towards Steven and gives us soooo many words of wisdom.This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. Do not get me wrong, there is plenty of depth as well, with so much under the surface to contemplate.

Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest"Word is out that COWS is every bit as dark and deranged as Iain Banks' classic The Wasp Factory.

The question COWS raises (the book seems to be cited in all-caps, which is appropriate to the way it shouts its perversions and obscenities) have to do with the place of extreme subject matter in art. Stokoe stays true to a bleak vision of the world as he enmeshes his characters in the kinds of tragic setups reminiscent of a Thomas Hardy novel. or "Not for the squeamish," or just simply "Nope," this little dandy generated some long discourse and even some legitimate essays that probably earned someone a decent grade for a university class. Now having read this myself, I think understand the kind of responses this short novel has received.

However, without style , substance or anything approaching a decent writing style he has failed miserably. Underground literary shock-rocker Stokoe slaps his readers in the face with this bloody, truly disgusting diatribe against normalcy. He has a new upstairs neighbor named Lucy, who just moved in and after whom he lusts, a foreman named Cripps who takes maybe a bit too much of a fatherly interest in Steven, and something watching him from the ventilation system in the slaughterhouse.

Matthew Stokoel has the ability to create a profound satire mixed in with cannibalism, bestiality, gore, sexual perversion, abuse, self mutilation. Matthew Stokoe has written a novel like no other I've ever read--appalling, funny, and possessed of a sense of outre violence that makes Joris-Karl Huysmans read like Louisa May Alcott. Not engrossing because of the shock but because the story is right below the surface of all the atrocities.