Let’s start on a high note. First off, we should applaud any fiction writer who decides to get experimental in their delivery while still maintaining some sort of narrative arc that soothes the human need for climax and resolution. This novella manages to do that while packing in a jumbled potluck of styles: monologue, travelogue, made-for-TV screenplay, foodie memoir, advertising copy, poetry, and solipsistic diary. It’s unfortunate that its delivery is hindered by some bad typesetting and layout on the part of Quattro’s art department, not to mention editing. I tried tonguing “bobbingerratic,” “furzzy,” “hardwet,” “damphot,” and “firmfleshed,” and while fun to say, I’m pretty sure those aren’t words. The garish cover design might also be considered a liability (though my kids got a giggle over the fact I was carrying a book around in public with a deer’s butthole on the cover). Grass-Fed is a short tale that has a lot to say about food, social class, and anatomy, so perhaps we should get right into the (ahem!) meat of it.
The basic premise: an assortment of well-to-do guests gather at an exclusive Canadian hunting retreat to experience what they are promised will be an unforgettable adventure into the “authentic food” lifestyle, led by Alexander, a charismatic and imposing celebrity food writer. Their guide—poised and practised in his carefully cocked Tilley hat, demons brewing just below the surface—is a tragic, perhaps accidental, shadow of the late Anthony Bourdain. Whether this was purposeful or an unfortunate oversight on behalf of the author is unknown, but it is an uncomfortable ghost to shake in an already uneasy set up. Besides the simmering Alexander, we have chef Matthew, who with his bespoke linen shirt, broad torso, and waves of shoulder-length blond hair, vaguely resembles a hipster Fabio with sharp knives. The rest of the ensemble cast features a maudlin, semi-famous Canadian author and four heterosexual couples, nearly interchangeable in their blandness, save for a retired hockey goon and his skittish, busty wife. In fact, I had to sketch a rough dramatis personæ to keep their forgettable names straight. My efforts to discern them as individuated persons rather than blunt caricatures proved feeble.
