Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read and review this ARC. Full review to be found on Goodreads and on my website.

Superbly weird tale that is deserving of all our attention. It was a bit strange to get into in the beginning but once you’re in it’s hard to put this book down.

I thoroughly enjoyed this! The overarching theme is quite timely (certainly must have something to do with its release after learning it's been on the authors mind for years) and the absurdity approach gives a lovely Vonnegut spin a unique voice from Flores. The end felt rushed and wasn't as well developed as the beginning elsewise this would have been a 5 star novel. I look forward to reading future work.

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux/MCD x FSG Originals on May 14, 2019

Tears of the Trufflepig is more surrealistic than most of the novels I enjoy, but it is rooted in the harsh realities of our national condition. The novel is set in a time and place that is in many ways very much like the world we know. The differences caution the reader to understand that the North America envisioned in the novel is the North America the next generation might inherit.

A world food shortage has killed a fifth of the Earth’s population. Not only did the United States build a border wall, but a second border wall was erected by Mexico, and the US is talking about building a third. Border Protectors roam around between the walls to deter illegal crossings. Armed Americans make a sport of killing intruders who are trapped in the shooting gallery formed by the walls. The US is threatening a new law that will send Border Protectors into Mexico to stop the problem at its source. None of this has done anything to deter unlawful immigration.

Drugs have been legalized in the western world, putting an end to drug cartels. Looking for new sources of illicit revenue, an enterprising criminal kidnapped some scientists who developed a process of “filtering” that allowed them to “grow” new animals, beginning with the ivory-billed parrot, providing a revenue stream from the black-market sale of ivory. Through the widespread kidnapping of scientists and science students, the criminal also bred silver moon foxes for their fur and extinct animals for collectors. Shrunken heads are also in high demand, which isn’t good for indigenous people who contribute their heads. The criminal who started it all is dead, but the business continues, cartels having replaced drug dealing with filtering.

Against that background we meet Esteban Bellacosa, who acquires equipment in Texas for a construction company in Mexico. Bellacosa brought merchandise across the border before the walls went up, working with a boy who is now a priest and another boy who is now dead. He regards modern Mexicans and Americans as “stale imitations of the cultures they were meant to be a part of.” Bellacosa has hired a detective in Mexico to find his brother Oswaldo, who has been kidnapped and is being held in the south for reasons unknown to Bellacosa.

A reporter named Paco Herbert hires Bellacosa to join him for a swanky, underground dinner. Attending the dinner alone would be suspicious; Bellacosa’s job is to be camouflage. Guests remain anonymous, but they are required to eat whatever extinct animals they are served. There they see a filtered animal with a beak and hooves and crocodile skin known as a Trufflepig.

Herbert is obsessed with the Aranaña, a forgotten people who, according to legend, could cross effortlessly between reality and the world of dreams. The Aranaña were supposedly closed off from civilization for centuries before their sudden reappearance as refugees. Legend has it that Trufflepigs were part of Aranaña culture, “accessible to them only in a dream state.” But the Trufflepig marked an era that, like most of the Aranaña, is now in the past. Perhaps the Aranaña have something in common with all the people who, like Oswaldo, have been disappeared.

Bellacosa becomes involved in a bizarre plot to which no summary could do justice. Bellacosa eventually steals a Trufflepig for reasons he can’t explain, and is surprised when he becomes attached to the gentle docility of the undemanding creature.

The story is filled with symbols of change, from the Trufflepig and the Aranaña to Tarot cards that represent the transition from past to future. The story’s surrealistic nature might be explained by the fact that Bellacosa sometimes describes events that he perceives after taking peyote. But the reader who looks beyond the story’s strangeness will find recognizable characters and events. Frequent references to music, film, food, and literature help ground the book in a familiar reality. While the political landscape is a natural outgrowth of America’s ascending nationalism, Bellacosa would be mourning the past and wondering about the future in any life. He has lost his wife and daughter, and (in a sense) his brother.

The story works because Bellacosa is something of an Everyman. He lives a lonely life, substituting harmless chats with waitresses for social interaction. He is caught up in circumstances he can’t control and doesn’t really understand. He is a powerless figure who, in his own small way, tucks a Trufflepig under his arm and takes a stand that will probably never be noticed. The novel seems to suggest that if more of us were like Bellacosa and if fewer of us championed walls and supported the corrupt desire for wealth, we could all share a more welcoming world. That's a good message, and Tears of the Trufflepig delivers it through an entertaining, albeit strange, story.

RECOMMENDED

I love reading translated fiction and this book was truly inventive. Great characters, compelling plot, amazing setting. Will definitely recommend this book. Can't wait for the public to discover it!

Nominated for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize 2019
In this dystopia, there are three border walls between Mexico and the US, the cartels are holding scientists hostage to make them artificially reproduce strange extinct animals, and the shrunken heads of the local Aranaña tribe are in high demand in the world of organized crime on both sides of the border - yes, it's weird, and that's just the beginning. Enter Esteban Bellacosa, freelance South Texas construction equipment locator and man of all trades. He is a widower who lost his daughter to famine, and his brother has been kidnapped by a cartel who intends to turn him into, well, a shrunken head that can be monetized. Then, journalist Paco Herbert sends Bellacosa to a decadent underground dinner to find out about the reproduced species that are consumed there, and Bellacosa first sees the title-giving Trufflepig, an fictitious (!) animal out of an Aranaña myth that the scientists have brought to life. And then, Bellacosa gets kidnapped by a shady border patrolman and the scientist-hostages hook him up to a Trufflepig so that the animal might reflect his subconsciousness - the narrative goes on it that vein.

So yes, Flores makes Jeff VanderMeer appear like a realist writer - this is absolutely outrageous, and you have to give Flores kudos for throwing something that unusual and wild in our faces. There is a noirish feel about Bellacosa, the lone wolf, and Herbert, the hardboiled investigative journalist. Unlike Bellacosa, I've never been on peyote, but this text sure is delirious, disorienting and hallucinatory. The whole novel is gritty and the narrative moves in unexpected ways, which sometimes can become ennervating and unnecessarily hard to follow.

So while there is plenty so see and to experience in this Southern rollercoaster of a novel, it was frequently to disparate for my taste - when a story arc explodes into my face, this narrative decision must be beneficial to the overall text, but many moves and shifts in this book seemed slightly gratuitous to me, just there to say "hey, I'm edgy". Nevertheless, this is an interesting novel, and Flores is the kind of author who will have a hard time writing a boring book.

While I think the premise of this book is unique and interesting, I don't think I'm the right audience for it. Worth giving a try if you like things that are unexpected, but this one just wasn't for me.

Why did I give Tears of the Trufflepig five stars?

You know, I'm not entirely sure.

Could I summarize the plot, the deeper meaning of what Fernando A. Flores had in mind when he wrote this novel? I could try but, in all honesty, I don't know that I could do it in a way that's fair and good to Fernando A. Flores and the intricate, complex thing he has created.

But, since this is a book review, I'd better try.

There is a man named Bellacosa who lives on the American side of the Texas-Mexico border at some point in the future (when there is not one but three(!) walls along the border... some people would be so happy, not me, but some). Bellacosa is a widower trying to get buy, making deals in a world that has been decimated by food shortages and crumbling governments, now controlled by (crime-ish) syndicates. These syndicates get rich and powerful in a few ways - by controlling a process known as 'filtering', which can produce extinct species of animals and plants, and by dealing in shrunken human heads said to be from the ancient, lost, maybe mythical Aranana tribe but really just whoever they can capture, decapitate, and dupe rich people with.

Bellacosa discovers much of this by accident, in the midst of just trying to get by.

In that way, he's a very good... perspective from which to view would could, and to some degree probably would, happen if catastrophes like food shortages began to decimate the world. The rich would be powerful, but only until they were not the richest. And then the cycle would repeat. Much like it does now anyway.

I don't know if the author was trying for full social commentary-slash-warnings of what could be, but I read that in what he wrote. If I could interview him, I would ask that. I'd ask if the hallucinations and the dreams and the mythical tribes are based on Mexican folklore and culture. I'd ask what inspired him to write this baffling, awesome story.

It's stark and it's scary and it's fascinating.

I have to read it again. I really, really do.

***As I have an ARC, the following quotes may not appear in the final version of the book... but I love them just the same... they alone could make this book five stars for me.***

"The worst that can happen is I die, and that's fine by me."

"It was a shame Bellacosa wasn't a drinking man. Alcohol never sat well with him, and he always asked himself what there was for a non-drinking man to quench his sorrows."

"She said the problem in this world is that wolves are still murdering grandmothers and disguising themselves as them in order to convince you nothing has changed..."

"They take your paradise, then our dreams of paradise. Then they try to take us, the dreamers."

(I received a copy of Tears of the Trufflepig through NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux in exchange for an honest and original review. All thoughts are my own.)

Tears of the Trufflepig is a surrealistic deep dive into where our current cultural road may lead. Tense US/Mexico border relations, genetically modified food, and a further divide between the haves and the have nots are all here.

In the future, worldwide food shortages have decimated the world’s population. Scientists have found a method of generating synthetic food. Drugs are legal in the US so Mexican cartels sell filtered animals to the rich. Filtered animals are genetically modified reincarnations of extinct species. Estaban Bellacosa works as an expeditor for a cartel. Paco is an investigative reporter looking into the filtering trade. When they meet during a dinner of filtered animals, the cartel’s troubles begin.

Tears of the Trufflepig is hallucinogenic, but believable, trip to a troubled future. The tale reminds me of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, where a certain suspension of belief is required to enjoy the plot. For readers that are looking for something different and are okay with a non-linear plot, this is a good choice. There is one caveat. There are many phrases in Spanish within the text that might be confusing for non-Spanish speakers. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars!

Thanks to Farrar, Strauss & Giroux and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Tears of the Trufflepig has a lot of ideas and takes a lot of risks with them. These executions are not always successful--still worth reading, especially in how the book feels like a blueprint for other books we'll see in five or ten years.

This review is based on an ARC of Tears of the Trufflepig which I received courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux).


So this was... Um... Wait, what did I just read?

Don't misunderstand, I adore magical realism. It's one of my favorite genres, especially when it's told for older or adult audiences. But this... Just didn't make sense.

There were POV switches and alternate-universe switches that I didn't understand and I was lost in the story in a bad way. I had no clue what was going on most of the time, and finally (about one-third of the way in) I gave up trying and just read. It all seems like a blur of a plot that I still don't understand or think I ever will.

I think that the worldbuilding that I did understand was good, but overall Tears of the Trufflepig is just too obscure for me, personally.

This novel set in future Texas has a crazy ride of a spin on drugs, immigration and the US/Mexico boarder issues. There are some good books grappling with the drug trade out there and you can add this Sci-Fi; satire; political novel to the list.

Tears of the Trufflepig confirms Flores’ visionary vein: here we are in a dystopian America, where drugs have become legal and have arisen other darker forms of smuggling and illegality. Tears of the Trufflepig is a splendid fresco suspended between noir, sci-fi, horror and the new narrative of racial and cultural integration, it tells our times with a freshness and an imaginative eccentricity reminiscent of Lethem’s Gun, with Occasional Music (but also and for many reasons also the Lethem of The Feral Detective). At the center of this novel there’s a mismatch between reality and representation to be mended, between the world as we imagine and think and the world as it appears out there in the chaotic daily experience.
https://americanorum.wordpress.com/2019/01/07/tears-of-the-trufflepig-di-fernando-a-flores/#more-651

This book provides a wonderfully rich description of the Texas-Mexico borderlands. Flores also offers a glimpse into a future that is equal parts frightening and fascinating, one populated by filtered exotic animals, food shortages, and the legends of the long-disappeared Aranaña Indian tribe. In many ways, what kept me interested in this book was hearing about all of the strange, absurd, yet familiar politics of South Texas and Mexico. That being said, I wasn't sure what/who to focus on. I know Bellacosa is the main character, but I often had a hard time telling what was important to him, both personally and in terms of shaping the plot of the book. Instead of a character-driven novel, this read more like a broad portrait of a particular place at a particular time. I kept having this feeling like I was waiting for something to happen, like I was waiting for the story to start building and picking up momentum, but that something never came.

Tears of The Trufflepig
by Fernando A. Flores
due May 14, 2019
MCDxFSG Originals
5.0 / 5.0

Truffles, like great poems and stories are priceless, a rarity. It takes a certain type of beast to find them. A certain type of beast to share them.
Tales of The Trufflepig.
Fernando A. Flores
This is that beast. Flores exceptional debut novel shares that beast with us.

The story of Estaban Bellacosa has a fascination all its own. He has lived in a bordertown of South Texas/ Mexico all his life. We are taken into the future.Drugs are now legal.
Making the contraband list are Shrunken Indigenous Heads. Ancient Olmec head statutes. Most wanted were filtered animals-species brought back from extinction to clothe, feed and provide entertain to the very very rich.Estaban meets Paco Herbert, an investigative journalist and is invited by him to attend an illegal underground dinner party, featuring filtered animals. The surreal effects of the filtered animals send Estaban on a journey where he encounters the Aranana Indian farmers, who worship the magical powers of the trufflepig.

Mexican and Aranana Indian culture and folklore. A look at the power of the wealthy and their selfish need to dictate society and its demise. Witty, insightful and original this is an exuberant, fascinating debut and one I await publication in May of 2019.
Keep an eye on Fernando A. Flores.
Thanks to MCDxFSG Originals for sending this e-book ARC for review.
#NetGalley #TearsOfTheTrufflepig

Interesting book concept and well written but I wasn’t a big fan. It’s not a bad book and I would suggest giving it a go but it wasn’t my taste.

Set in South Texas and Mexico, in a not-so-distant future, an absurd time where lopped and shrunken heads of the Aranaña Indians are sold to collectors for an exorbitant price (Gasp!), and filtered exotic, extinct animals are bought and collected by the rich as a source of amusement (Whaaaa?! t?!); a time crime and entertainment had no boundaries.

Estaban Bellacosa, the main protagonist, ran a construction company, whose business was to acquire special construction machinery for his clients. When a business deal fell through, he was met with a series of unexpected events, including his encounters with legends of the long-disappeared Aranaña Indian tribe and his possession of a trufflepig, which "looked like a pig with tiny ears, mouth which was actually a beak like a chicken's or a rooster's, and had dark green skin of a crocodile", and believed to have special powers.

Paco Herbert, a young journalist, hoping to make a name for himself by covering one of the most coveted events of his life - a very highly-secretive, black-market dinner which cost 799 million cubic pesos per ticket. It piqued his curiosity. What was this dinner all about? Why was it so extravagant? Why was it kept under covers?

I enjoyed this book as a whole for the simple fact that it was different, strange and weird (in the best sense of the word), and highly imaginative.

What kept me going was trying to figure out the rest of the story and where it'd take me, and at almost turn of the page, the outcome is surprising. 'Tears of the Trufflepig' is definitely a good addition to the literary world and a great read for those looking for something different. I say, get out of your comfort zone, and enter the convoluted world of legalized narcotics and filtered extinct animals, where unicorns are real, and exotic dodo birds are fried and consumed at dinners!

Thank you Netgalley and FSG Originals for providing me a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

A full review will be posted on my blog and Goodreads, and shared on Twitter and Litsy closer to publication day.