Mathew Stokoe's 1997 shockfest novel, Cows, received a re-release this year through Dennis Cooper's Little House on the Bowery, and, whether revisiting the cult classic or taking your first venture into its unsettling storytelling, you (assuming you're not a teenage boy into smut) will be sadly disappointed, having wasted all that flinching at its grotesque scenarios for little payoff from the book's narrative or prose. The book's meandering through a predictable sum of taboos reads like a checklist of gross-outs, seldom contributing to the books ultimate narrative and existing only as shock for shock's sake. Now, such wouldn't be quite so seemingly amateurish and immature (and thus excruciating to read) if the prose were actually substantial or the character psychology remotely interesting. Unfortunately, Stokoe fails to deliver as he lazily falls into hyper-masculine explanations and weak anecdotes to describe what motivates his amoral universe of characters.
What helps the novel remain somewhat interesting are its fantastical elements, such as the beast-like and surreal descriptions of his evil mother or the anthropomorphic, talking cow characters. This is all, however, executed quite literally and driven straight into a wall almost immediately. What could have worked as some edge-y fabulist fantasy of uncertain imagination remains an unsatisfying, vomit-drenched, horror version of Never Ending Story.
What helps the novel remain somewhat interesting are its fantastical elements, such as the beast-like and surreal descriptions of his evil mother or the anthropomorphic, talking cow characters. This is all, however, executed quite literally and driven straight into a wall almost immediately. What could have worked as some edge-y fabulist fantasy of uncertain imagination remains an unsatisfying, vomit-drenched, horror version of Never Ending Story.
