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A review by arha
The Devourers by Indra Das
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
(If you'll pardon the expression,) this book got under my skin. Not all the sentences, individually, are good. Collectively, they form a prose style that infects my mind and makes the world feel terrifying and wonderful. And that prose style comes in the service of something genuinely magnificent.
I went into this book knowing basically nothing about it: I read one of Indra Das' short stories and decided it was good enough that I'd read whatever else he felt like writing. I stand by that decision. Between deciding to read it and starting it, though, I did see some people online refer to it as "the piss kink book". I feel that this description undersells both the quantity of bodily fluids and the quantity of weird sex encountered in the course of these beautiful intertwined stories. It's all thematically appropriate, and one could argue that it is tastefully done, but I think almost every bodily fluid the body can produce makes an appearance, and most of them are sexualized. You have been warned/enticed, depending on how you feel about that sort of thing.
As someone who dissects mice for a living, I appreciated the accuracy and specificity in the blood 'n' guts. Two of the humans who make appearances solely as terrified prey and then as warm eviscerated carcasses have fatty livers, and there is enough descriptive detail to distinguish that one has metabolic-associated steatotic liver disease due to starvation, and the other has alcoholic liver disease. The level of care, thought, and specificity in this book is incredible and very satisfying.
The other thing I knew about this book before starting (other than "writer good" and "piss kink") was that it was sort of in some way transgender maybe. Honestly, this book's perspective on gender is far too interesting for the internet. It's a look at patriarchal violence and gender-warping transcendence that is lucid and hallucinatory, and, crucially, very fucking cool.
If all that sounds too abstract for you, I told my boyfriend that it's a book about a history professor having a gay werewolf romance and read him the sexy bits out of context, and he liked it a lot.
I went into this book knowing basically nothing about it: I read one of Indra Das' short stories and decided it was good enough that I'd read whatever else he felt like writing. I stand by that decision. Between deciding to read it and starting it, though, I did see some people online refer to it as "the piss kink book". I feel that this description undersells both the quantity of bodily fluids and the quantity of weird sex encountered in the course of these beautiful intertwined stories. It's all thematically appropriate, and one could argue that it is tastefully done, but I think almost every bodily fluid the body can produce makes an appearance, and most of them are sexualized. You have been warned/enticed, depending on how you feel about that sort of thing.
As someone who dissects mice for a living, I appreciated the accuracy and specificity in the blood 'n' guts. Two of the humans who make appearances solely as terrified prey and then as warm eviscerated carcasses have fatty livers, and there is enough descriptive detail to distinguish that one has metabolic-associated steatotic liver disease due to starvation, and the other has alcoholic liver disease. The level of care, thought, and specificity in this book is incredible and very satisfying.
The other thing I knew about this book before starting (other than "writer good" and "piss kink") was that it was sort of in some way transgender maybe. Honestly, this book's perspective on gender is far too interesting for the internet. It's a look at patriarchal violence and gender-warping transcendence that is lucid and hallucinatory, and, crucially, very fucking cool.
If all that sounds too abstract for you, I told my boyfriend that it's a book about a history professor having a gay werewolf romance and read him the sexy bits out of context, and he liked it a lot.