In a coastal city reeling from a new and dangerous climate catastrophe, a woman finds herself unmoored from the life she knew and from a certain future. As ill winds and waters beat about her hometown, she plans to escape but remains there due to obligations and logistical challenges. PINK SLIME, a slim and quietly powerful novel by Uruguayan author Fernanda Trías and translated into English by Heather Cleary, follows her as she navigates a dark reality.

A fatal bloom of algae is in the water, and all the fish have died. A red wind scours the foggy landscape, and the birds have died. People are dying, too; their skin is coming off their bodies, and those who escape that fate face starvation. There is a pervasive hopelessness as those who can afford to flee the city and the black markets are emptying as well.

"PINK SLIME is a strange and haunting book driven by rumination and an examination of an interior life even in a chaotic setting. Slow and philosophical, detached and unsettling, this is a novel to ponder and puzzle over."

Pink slime, sold as “Meatrite,” is the highly processed tubed meat paste that is one of the remaining forms of protein available. The unnamed narrator knows all too well the way that pink slime is made from her childhood tours of the plant where it was manufactured as a cheap substitute for quality food. She visited the factory with her beloved caregiver, Delfa, to see Delfa’s husband, don Omar, who worked there. As a child she never ate the disgusting product, but now her options are limited.

Seeing commercials for pink slime on television reminds her of Delfa and brings up memories of Delfa’s unconditional love, which is in contrast to her tense relationship with her mother. That relationship remains brittle, and they discuss leaving the city, hoping to save enough money to flee inland or to Brazil. She is stuck in another fraught relationship, with her ex-husband, Max. Friends since they were kids, married and now divorced, the narrator visits Max in the “Clinics,” where he is a “chronic” patient. His status in the hospital is enviable as he is not actively dying and is fairly well cared for. Though he is not her responsibility, Max is one of the reasons she feels connected to the city despite his history of antagonism.

The other person keeping her at home is Mauro, a young boy suffering from a cluster of vague but terrible maladies and afflictions, who has been left in her care by his wealthy parents. Mauro struggles to communicate and, most disturbingly, will eat anything he can --- food or not --- if left unattended. It is Mauro who she mostly shares her life with in the pages of the novel as they await the overdue return of his folks. The two ration their food, unfortunately having to turn to tubes of pink slime to stay alive.

Pink slime becomes, for the novel’s protagonist, a symbol of a life and a world turned upside down. It represents Mauro’s insatiable hunger, the childhood relationships that color her adulthood, the deadly lack of nutrition and health she faces, and the systemic and climate issues that impact everyone but disproportionately affect the poor.

Trías writes in riddles and poetry about uncertainty and foregone conclusions, loss and appetite, self and the others who create us. PINK SLIME is a strange and haunting book driven by rumination and an examination of an interior life even in a chaotic setting. Slow and philosophical, detached and unsettling, this is a novel to ponder and puzzle over.