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yliimehenry's review
4.0
A quick but fascinating look at the working class life of an individual in the South Wales Valleys on the day of the Brexit vote. Really interesting and good character depth.
mushypeasonearth's review
dark
funny
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
elynstephens's review
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
rubiemay's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
tommooney's review
5.0
I was 18 the first time I went to the South Wales valleys, in October 2004. Specifically, it was the Rhondda. I went back to my new uni girlfriend's family home in Tonypandy for the weekend, to meet her parents for the first time. After a couple of days eating heavy meals and slowly trying to charm them with my westcountry cheek, we set off back to university in Swansea. Five minutes after departing that typical valleys town, we edged over a ridge and drove a mountain road flanked by death-defying drops. Roaring waterfalls plundered down ancient rockfaces, sheep grazed lazily at the grassy roadside, the gulleys and gulches fell dramatically all around. I hadn't witnessed natural beauty like it. I kept asking her parents to stop and let me take photos on my disposable camera to show my dad. It was like I'd discovered some secret the Welsh were keeping from the English.
Over the next decade and more, I would go back to the Rhondda hundreds of times (we are now married with two children, though much of her family has now moved away from the area). Every occasion was bookended by the same glorious drive. The people were warm and friendly to a level I haven't encountered anywhere else. But, the longer I spent there, the more you could see this place was no Eden. The deprivation became more evident with each passing year. This was a place abandoned by industry, by employers, by politics.
Rachel Trezise's new novel, Easy Meat, brings this clash of beauty and abandonment to the fore. It follows a day in the life of Caleb Jenkins, an ex-reality TV star now working the boning line at a slaughterhouse to keep his family afloat. His family carpet business has gone bust and his parents and brother have had to move in with him.
This is no ordinary day either. 23 June, 2016. Brexit vote day.
Caleb negotiates his day with the resigned stoicism of the contemporary working class, while politics swirls all around him. His apathy on Brexit is evident, though he's surrounded by self-declared experts on the subject, as well as scores of European workers at the slaughterhouse. How can he not be apathetic? When would he have the time or inclination to educate himself about it? He's trapped by The Machine. As the day comes to a conclusion, the country is on the verge of a momentous decision and Caleb has hardly given it much thought.
Trezise has delivered a sublime portrait of Welsh working class life. She presents the clashing polarisation of the national moment with care and devoid of judgement, preferring to listen and understand rather than opine. Her ear for the rhythms and cadence of Valleys speak is excellent and she blends comic elements perfectly with the underlying bleakness of Caleb's situation. Running through it all, however, are the striving working class people, Welsh and European alike, just trying to make things better for themselves and their families; people used as tokenistic political pawns far too often in recent years.
This is the Brexit novel we've been waiting for.
Over the next decade and more, I would go back to the Rhondda hundreds of times (we are now married with two children, though much of her family has now moved away from the area). Every occasion was bookended by the same glorious drive. The people were warm and friendly to a level I haven't encountered anywhere else. But, the longer I spent there, the more you could see this place was no Eden. The deprivation became more evident with each passing year. This was a place abandoned by industry, by employers, by politics.
Rachel Trezise's new novel, Easy Meat, brings this clash of beauty and abandonment to the fore. It follows a day in the life of Caleb Jenkins, an ex-reality TV star now working the boning line at a slaughterhouse to keep his family afloat. His family carpet business has gone bust and his parents and brother have had to move in with him.
This is no ordinary day either. 23 June, 2016. Brexit vote day.
Caleb negotiates his day with the resigned stoicism of the contemporary working class, while politics swirls all around him. His apathy on Brexit is evident, though he's surrounded by self-declared experts on the subject, as well as scores of European workers at the slaughterhouse. How can he not be apathetic? When would he have the time or inclination to educate himself about it? He's trapped by The Machine. As the day comes to a conclusion, the country is on the verge of a momentous decision and Caleb has hardly given it much thought.
Trezise has delivered a sublime portrait of Welsh working class life. She presents the clashing polarisation of the national moment with care and devoid of judgement, preferring to listen and understand rather than opine. Her ear for the rhythms and cadence of Valleys speak is excellent and she blends comic elements perfectly with the underlying bleakness of Caleb's situation. Running through it all, however, are the striving working class people, Welsh and European alike, just trying to make things better for themselves and their families; people used as tokenistic political pawns far too often in recent years.
This is the Brexit novel we've been waiting for.
christynhoover's review
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
I'm old school and initially didn't catch on to some of the lingo, but after the first few pages it went fine. It was different for me to be reading about two brothers in their twenties from a working class family in one of the South Wales valleys. But there were "romantic" (I use that descriptor broadly) tensions etc and ultimately it was a satisfying read. I got a glimpse of what it's like to work in a slaughterhouse. And I liked the way the author concluded it --ie open-ended-- but sometimes that works.
justineharvey's review
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
hollyp20's review
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Overshadowed in the time of a global pandemic, Rachel Trezise brings Brexit again into the forefront of people’s minds in this unreservedly grim novella that hammers home the bleakness of working-class Wales, providing us with an explanation as to what compelled a country to dive head-first into the unfamiliar and choose ‘Leave’.
As the author of In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl, Trezise now writes from the perspective of Caleb, a man who once had everything – success and fame, peak physical fitness and a family of his own. With these accomplishments now mere memories, Caleb’s existence is rather hopeless, yet vital to his parents who rely on him to provide for the family because they have gone bankrupt. His mundane and monotonous life is contrasted with the savagery and disquiet nature of the slaughterhouse in which he works, day in, day out, as an outsider to his colleagues. As a man on the edge of not only his boning knife, Caleb wants change and nurses his individual dissatisfaction by utilising the politics available to him and on the 23rd of June 2016 in South Wales – when the book is set – that just so happens to be the EU referendum. For Trezise’s protagonist, to leave the EU ‘meant something had to change’ and all he has to do is put ‘a graphite cross into the box’. Whether this is to his detriment or not, Caleb does not care.
The book explores this concept microcosmically through the character of Savannah when she communicates to Caleb her reason for self-harming. She says, ‘I felt helpless. It made me feel better, like I had some control over something’ – Savannah’s self-harm is an act of self-destruction for the sake of feeling in control. Can this rationale not be applied to the ‘vote leave’ side of the Brexit debate? Even though it is possibly harmful to vote leave, the promise that it will bring change and give more power to the UK triumphs the plethora of disadvantages that it could possibly create. What is most prolific about the Savannah metaphor is that even though she claims that she is okay now, ‘the raised bumps of scar tissue’ still remain on her forearm.
Trezise has lived in Wales all her life and is, therefore, able to give a first-hand experience of Brexit from the Welsh perspective, a viewpoint often forgotten or left out of political narratives. As the first ever winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize, the author harnesses her remarkably distinctive writing style once again to confront this political issue and cause the reader to experience the anxieties surrounding it. Tensions are at their highest in the slaughterhouse, with Caleb’s slicing and sawing intertwining with recollections of his traumatic past and present frustration, which makes for an unsettling read in which you realise you have not taken a breath for a page or two. Yes, the story is politically inclined, but in no way is Easy Meat ever dull as Trezise takes the saying ‘like a lamb to the slaughter’, and gives it a whole new meaning.
As the author of In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl, Trezise now writes from the perspective of Caleb, a man who once had everything – success and fame, peak physical fitness and a family of his own. With these accomplishments now mere memories, Caleb’s existence is rather hopeless, yet vital to his parents who rely on him to provide for the family because they have gone bankrupt. His mundane and monotonous life is contrasted with the savagery and disquiet nature of the slaughterhouse in which he works, day in, day out, as an outsider to his colleagues. As a man on the edge of not only his boning knife, Caleb wants change and nurses his individual dissatisfaction by utilising the politics available to him and on the 23rd of June 2016 in South Wales – when the book is set – that just so happens to be the EU referendum. For Trezise’s protagonist, to leave the EU ‘meant something had to change’ and all he has to do is put ‘a graphite cross into the box’. Whether this is to his detriment or not, Caleb does not care.
The book explores this concept microcosmically through the character of Savannah when she communicates to Caleb her reason for self-harming. She says, ‘I felt helpless. It made me feel better, like I had some control over something’ – Savannah’s self-harm is an act of self-destruction for the sake of feeling in control. Can this rationale not be applied to the ‘vote leave’ side of the Brexit debate? Even though it is possibly harmful to vote leave, the promise that it will bring change and give more power to the UK triumphs the plethora of disadvantages that it could possibly create. What is most prolific about the Savannah metaphor is that even though she claims that she is okay now, ‘the raised bumps of scar tissue’ still remain on her forearm.
Trezise has lived in Wales all her life and is, therefore, able to give a first-hand experience of Brexit from the Welsh perspective, a viewpoint often forgotten or left out of political narratives. As the first ever winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize, the author harnesses her remarkably distinctive writing style once again to confront this political issue and cause the reader to experience the anxieties surrounding it. Tensions are at their highest in the slaughterhouse, with Caleb’s slicing and sawing intertwining with recollections of his traumatic past and present frustration, which makes for an unsettling read in which you realise you have not taken a breath for a page or two. Yes, the story is politically inclined, but in no way is Easy Meat ever dull as Trezise takes the saying ‘like a lamb to the slaughter’, and gives it a whole new meaning.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Self harm