I’m not an overly fast reader, but I’m steady. I haven’t really stopped reading since I discovered science fiction in 7th grade, and I turned 63 a couple of days ago, which means I’ve read a lot of books. I have decent recall, but the way my brain works for some reason is that the stories that really stick with me, the ones that live forever rent-free in my head, are the gut-punchers, the stories that have a physical, visceral impact.

The other thing my brain does, and maybe everyone’s brain works like this, I don’t know, is that sometimes when I’m reading something, it triggers a memory of one of those gut-puncher stories. So, if you’ll indulge me for a minute (and if not, feel free to skip ahead), these are the stories that Tender Is the Flesh, Agustina Bazterrica’s brutal, brilliant, bleak, and unforgettable novel ripped from my memory as I read it: The Harvest, a notorious comic written and drawn by Jose Ortiz for 1984 Magazine; In the Barn, a shocking Piers Anthony story that appeared in Again, Dangerous Visions; Exquisite Corpse, Poppy Z. Brite’s tale of dueling cannibalistic serial killers in New Orleans; and, finally, Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic The Road.

If you’ve read any of these, you should have an idea of what’s in store for you with Tender Is the Flesh, but please believe me when I tell you—you are not prepared. In fact, consider this a wholesale trigger warning for what follows.

Tender Is the Flesh is set in a future world where an infectious virus has rendered all animal meat, literally all of it, deadly poisonous to humans. In short order, with surprising, disturbing quickness, institutional cannibalism becomes the law of the land, a thriving commercial industry that raises, processes, and slaughters for food.

The main character, Marcos, is a broken man. His wife has left him after the death of their child, his father is caught in the grip of dementia, and he’s having doubts about his job—he’s the number two man at a processing plant for “Special Meat,” the accepted euphemism for human flesh. Still, he’s good at his job, going through each day with numb efficiency. Then something happens that turns his life upside down and forces him to make a difficult choice.

When it comes to world building, Bazterrica outdoes herself. Much of the novel is a tour through the entirety of the “special meat” industry, from top to bottom, and she presents it with stomach-churning, unflinching detail. This is a novel that’s clearly meant to be hard to read, and it succeeds on that count. I think that’s part of what makes it so important, so relevant. Because maybe, with this out there in the world, with these words committed to paper, there’s less of a chance that something like it would actually come to pass, although I have to admit my faith in humanity right now is at an all time low, so who knows?

There were several times while reading Tender Is the Flesh that I had to pause and set the book down for a moment. If you’re an animal lover, in particular, be aware there’s a scene here you may want to skip. The whole book is traumatizing, but that scene…

Tender Is the Flesh is a horror classic, if you have the stomach for it. This is brave, uncompromising writing. I have a feeling that the next time I read something that punches me in the gut, this is the novel my brain will remind me of.