September Press Books, 238 pages, digital, $5.99

I could tell you Matthew Stokoe’s Cows is a hardcore novel that walks the line between horror and noir. However, calling Cows hardcore is like calling Stephen Hawking a smart dude. Cows is a rare gem, a gory, violent opus that digs deep into the darkest corners of the human psyche and shines a light on the scurrying things that hide there. Stokoe’s prose makes Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma look like Saturday morning cartoons. Yeah, it’s that good.

Steven lives with his mother and works at a slaughterhouse. Although that might sound normal, his life is a living hell. His mother, who he calls the Hagbeast, is determined to make him suffer as much as possible, and one of the places she likes to use as a weapon is the kitchen. Also, a man named Cripps, who works as Steven’s supervisor at work, is trying to turn him into a different being via death, torture, and strange sex acts. Steven’s only comfort comes from his dog and Lucy, a girl he might be able to love under the right circumstances, but who hides a dark obsession with the inevitability of pain and poison. While Cripps’ lessons grow stranger and infinitely more gruesome, Steven is also forced to deal with a talking, plotting Guernsey. The cow, part of a herd that escaped and now lives under the city streets, wants to convince Steven to help them stop Cripps by killing him. Steven eventually makes his mind up, and his actions put him on a path full of mayhem and destruction that, even if only momentarily, make his dream of living a life like those he sees on television a reality.

Cows is a deep, complex narrative that explores depression, loneliness, sex, the nature of power, and the lengths to which humans will go in order to construct something that resembles whatever they think a happy life is like. Stokoe approaches each of these elements with the precision of a surgeon and uses his brutally honest and uncomfortably blunt prose to make each theme a sharp, scary component of a narrative that’s packed with them. The story is so gloomy, the atmosphere so impossibly and nonchalantly sinister, and the descriptions so vivid that the text is a true test of endurance for both brain and stomach.

Besides the cheerless aura of the narrative, Cows is also one of the most fantastically gruesome texts out there. In fact, I would argue that you’d have to leave genre constraints behind and look at the most talented purveyors of hardcore horror in order to find something somewhat similar. There’s plenty of blood, semen, and feces here, but Stokoe doesn’t stop there. A dead dog, a blood-spattered self-abortion, homicidal stampedes, a fetus nailed to a wall, and plenty of ghastly murders permeate the narrative. And the author is still not done. From coprophagia to bestiality, Cows contains enough deviant conduct and grisly practices to be considered a depravity guide.

Sure, it would probably be safer to say this is a tome for readers with a strong stomach and the ability to read truly shocking fiction without suffering a nervous breakdown. However, the bursts of pure poetry, unwavering prose, and the way Stokoe deconstructs love, hope, and familial ties make Cows such an exceptional tome that it can only be called a must-read…for everyone.

—

Gabino Iglesias is writer, journalist, and book reviewer living in Austin, TX. He’s the author of Gutmouth and a few other things no one will ever read. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.