The Cows

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Matthew Stokoe's debut novel can best be summarized as follows. Take a healthy dollop of Horatio Alger (tempered with a dash of Alger Hiss), mix in a good dose of China Mieville's King Rat, a shot of Robert Bloch, add a couple of jiggers of Peter Sotos, ten drams of Camus, two shakes of David Mamet, bung in a couple of PETA ads of the most offensive variety, and then dump the whole mess into a shaker lined with Stewart Home. Shake, chill, and serve over ice cubes laced with LSD, rat poison, and Hideshi Hino films. One taste and you have scraped the tip of the iceberg that is Cows. Think whatever made it move is happy now in the fields of the hereafter? You believe in that kind of thing? Forget it. Meat doesn't have the brains.It just works till it dies or until someone cuts it up." The Cows is a (at times) funny read about three different women who all end up crossing paths with each other by the end of the book. Christine : That’s right, you tell him! Listen, soon-to-be-trampled author-boy, in the first part of your opus you have your extreme-horror slaughterhouse fun with us cows, and then in the second part, you turn us into a fatuous allegory about fascism, where once again we play the mindless puppets. At every turn you debovinise us! We’re just your fodder!

Roxanne : I think we’re wandering from the point. This situation we have here is like Bret Easton Ellis finding himself alone in a room full of women in 1991 just after you know what was published. The way this character acted in the aftermath was too much for me. Her child was abandoned so she could wallow as she watched the act go viral. But as a blogger, a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister and a friend I would recommend this book to all the young women of today. The writing is sharp, witty and though at times whimsical, it’s also a very intelligent read. COWS’ has become a cult classic, much in the way ‘A Serbian Tale’ has for the movie watching community. I’d been recommended this a few times by different people. I’m not sure if it was because they wanted to see my thoughts on it or if they wanted to know if I had the fortitude to dive past the garbage that floated at the top of the water and see the story that lay on the ocean floor, but either way, I finally realized I wanted to dive in and truthfully, while this book is DEFINITELY not for everyone, I was stunned with the story Stokoe delivered. I’ll be totally honest with you. I might have given this book higher than three stars if not for the fear of what doing so might make people think of me.

The writing is simple and clear, and when the author writes about the care of the animals (the cows and sheep) it really sings. The book gives a great sense of the grueling, if poetic, daily toil of farming, the way farmers (especially in this birthing season) have to constantly be on the lookout for the life around them, alert to the slightest signs of disease, watchful for pregnancy, and you follow him as he makes the right call sometimes, and the wrong call others. (People interested in veterinary care would also enjoy this.) The book explores women's sexuality and the right to explore it without comment. It also explores themes of trolling, how women are judged by others and perceived in the media, and the importance of female friendships, as well as women's right to choices over their own fertility and reproduction. These are all themes I think need exploring, whether in fiction or non-fiction, and which interest me. However, I did find O'Porter's book, whilst wishing to banish stereotypes, at times felt like the characters were actually stereotypes themselves. We have the usual guilt of the working mother; the disapproval of parents of the women's lifestyles; and the men in the story also felt slightly one-dimensional. I felt the characters and situations slightly unbelievable and difficult to connect with.

Dawn O’Porter: the accessibility of her writing style will cement The Cows’ popularity. Photograph: Jenny Sharif I’m finding it hard to say what happens in this book, as I don’t want to give too much away, so all I’m going to say about the plot is that one woman makes a rather embarrassing mistake that turns her life upside down. You know who she reminded me of while reading this book? If you are familiar with Pink Floyd's "The Wall".....and the song "Mother".....yup...that's her - without the maternal loving.....her words to Steven is to call him "cunt" and serve him raw sheep stomach while walking around with her menstrual stains.....yeah - gets pretty descriptive. Perhaps the intended audience is one unfamiliar with Ireland, who need to be told that the Shannon is “the longest river in the British Isles”, and that Connell’s granny, the last woman in Ireland to receive the IRA widow’s war pension, is fretting because even though the general election is over, ‘the county has no member of parliament”.

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COWS is exceptionally well-written and flows beautifully from chapter to chapter. The characters, with the exception of Steven, are very unlikable. Cripps, who works with Steven at the meat plant is especially despicable. I think that was needed to move the story in the direction it went.

Anyway, in total I didn't find anything deep, or moving, or intellectual here. I didn't find any inner beauty that only those who "get it" can see. I didn't find this to be an important novel in any capacity. You can paint a canvas with shit, and in the right place at the right time, you'll find enough influential people to convince others of its genius that you have a following. That's what "COWS" really means to me. I have been trolled, trolled real hard. Trolled so hard I haven’t slept for days. Trolled so hard my self esteem has been left raw and sore. Sore and raw. Rawsore. Trolling hurts, it hurts bad.’ Few are the gross-out books and movies that properly utilise gore in service of the story. This book is a shining example of how to do it. The wretched set-up is necessary to prime our suspension of disbelief for what is yet to come. Every horrible incident that follows thereafter is a stepping stone on Stephen’s path towards becoming cow Hitler (I don’t know what else to call it). Once he is the one committing the atrocities instead of having them done to him, the gruesome scenes acquire a new timbre; they are stepping stones no more, but milestones in his evolution.In the apartment upstairs Lucy spends her nights searching for the toxins she knows are collecting inside her body, desperate to rid herself of them. When she enlists Steven's help to manipulate a piece of invasive medical apparatus, he begins to see that a better life might indeed be possible. Lucy could be his partner, they could make a home together, they could have a baby. They could be just like the folks on TV.​ The Farmer's Son is a memoir of roughly four months in the life of John Connell, the eponymous son, returned to live on his family's farm in Longford after several years in Australia and Canada. Recovering from a bout of depression that had led to the end of a relationship, Connell tends to the cattle and sheep, squabbles with his father, takes up running, and broods. This story focusses on three very different women who are initially unconnected, but gradually become a part of each other’s lives due to events that in many ways are out of their control.

This book was absolutely brilliant and I loved all of it. It's been a long time since a book was able to make laugh out loud while reading (including when in public) and make me want to yell 'WTF!' five minutes later. This book is a laugh out loud funny, unapologetic take on feminist literature and I really feel it's a must-read. This book covers working in a male-focused environment, pressures of being a single and/or working mum, childlessness - both intentional and unintentional, abortion, public opinion, sex, orgasms, masturbation. It really has a bit of everything!All the nice bits about being a woman but all the crappy ones too! This is the story of a 29 year old Longford man who returned home to help out on his family farm after living and working abroad. Hmmm where to begin. OK well let's begin with the five star rating system. If I allocated stars for books based on enjoyment and pleasure levels would this get five stars? No. Likewise if I allocated stars on how widely read I think a book ought to be, would this get five stars there? Definitely, a no. For sheer originality, uniqueness of vision, and bravura storytelling, and the fact that it has the impact of a freight train, this book most certainly gets five stars from me. I had to think, before writing my review. I understand why there is controversy surrounding this book. This book touched me so much, that it took me a while, to put my ideas into place. I loved it! Except so much about The Farmer's Son doesn't ring true to someone who's from the Midlands. ""Oíche mhaith, Ma," I say, which is the old language for "goodnight."" Why would he randomly switch into Irish when Longford hasn't been a Gaeltacht for generations? Why refer to Irish as "the old language"? Who does that? This is twee fantasy, not how we speak. But in a book which not only feels it has to stop and explain who St Brigit is, but refers to "members of parliament" rather than TDs, perhaps this is par for the course. The intended audience lives far from Connell's native townlands.Why you should buy this: It’s interesting to me that the book I kept thinking of while reading ‘COWS’ was ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ by Viktor Frankl. ‘COWS’ itself is just that, a young man who longs to break free from the chains that he’s been born into and find happiness and meaning, if only it is an idea of what it should be and should look like. Stokoe has crafted a story that does have significant depth and had me really thinking and it is an engaging piece of fiction, if you can get past that layer of filth and look for the treasure chest resting at the bottom of the sea. Unfortunately, I didn't see it. Perhaps I should have gone into it more blind. But I don't think it would have made any difference. First of all, I could not pinpoint any messages or themes in this novel that said anything that hadn't been said by 1997 less crudely and graphically but with more emotional impact. I felt like I was treading in familiar territory. Perhaps that is because I also have been a lifelong listener of some of the darker subgenres of industrial music, such as power electronics, which highlights sensory experiences otherwise abrasive and repellent and uses them in a way that somehow captures a bleak psychological concept or story, while also managing to capture the beauty behind the noise.