Eating Mammals

I bought the book just a few days ago and managed to read it in its entirety in just two days. The writing is excellent--quick-witted and even a little bit tongue-in-cheek at times--and the stories themselves are great. Yes, at times they are quite gross, but, really, the humor outweighs it by a landslide. This book is definitely worth a read.

The three novellas of this book's title are: the title story 'Eating Mammals' which is about a professional eater called Captain Gusto, (kind of like Kobayashi Takeru only he'll literally eat anything), 'The Possession of Thomas-Bessie: a Victorian Melodrama' about a strange cat, born with a pair of small wings (don't worry, it's not in the least cutesy or cat-fancieresque), and finally 'The Donkey Wedding at Gomersal, recounted by an inhabitant of that place' about a rather odd wedding (I'll let you guess what exactly was odd about it). They're all good solid stories, engagingly written, but the title story takes the cake, so to speak. I don't want to spoil it, but one of the last scenes is so perfectly, viscerally, stomach-churningly written that I literally felt sick reading it. Anyone can write a gross-out scene, but this is different, it was kind of a gross-out elevated to the level of art. I recommend this book to all comers (provided they have a strong stomach) and I invite you to check out the author's first full-length novel 'Intoxicated', which I'm eagerly looking forward to reading.

Come on! This is a great, great read. Witty and stylish writing, but warm hearted. read it, y'all! It reminded me of Edgar Allen Poe, but funny and pacier. Cool.

I have only read the first novella in the collection, the one for which the volume is named. As there are no other reviews on this item, I figured what the heck. I picked up this book because it looked totally different from other things I've seen. And it is. I was amazed, flabbergasted, disgusted, and touched. So all in all, you should pick it up and check it out.