Reviewed by Amy Havel

Wendy Dunleavy lives in a dark world plagued by monsters of greed and vanity that are driven to devouring human flesh and identified by sharp claws and an endless appetite for blood. This place: Washington, D.C. of course. Among all of the ogres in the city, one particularly grisly monster takes center stage in Julia Slavin’s first novel, Carnivore Diet. As Wendy tries to maintain a “normal” family life while her husband is in jail on corruption charges and her son is drifting away from her, a “chagwa” is terrorizing the streets of the capitol city’s suburbs (the monster is best described by what it does to its victims, not by what it looks like: a good choice by Slavin). The chagwa is especially intent on capturing Dylan, so Wendy spends her time trying to convince various people to kill the beast, but all are more intent on the intrigue of the chagwa’s wrath than on actually doing anything to prevent it.

Although the chagwa provides the central problem in Wendy’s life, it only hints to the bigger picture. Dylan, who narrates part of the novel, is going through a rough time since the ending of his part on a cartoon, for reasons of puberty. The network apparently burns through actors for the part of the Harlan character as their voices change. One of the funniest parts of the novel pertains to the description of all the ex-Harlans, and how the network takes care of them after they’ve become adults. The cartoon itself had Dylan playing the part of a loving and innocent son, the reruns of which play of nicely against the current circumstances.

As Wendy attempts to protect her son and keep her life from spinning out of control, she, like many others living in fear of the chagwa, becomes addicted to tranquilizers and her point of view quickly gets unwieldly. Slavin does an excellent job of taking the reader on Wendy’s roller coaster of panic through terrific dialogue and the use of minor characters as obstacles in her plan to capture and kill the chagwa. Particularly memorable are two members of the elite in Washington: Ben Sottenberg, a philanderer who can accomplish anything (writes books, negotiates treaties, wins major athletic contests) and leaves women weeping in his wake, and Holman Greenly, a twenty-term senator who everyone loves to hate. Although Holman has a reputation for being a pig, his conversations with Wendy are hilarious, especially considering she had attended his funeral days before (it was staged). He tries to tackle her and she fends him off as if she’s done it a dozen times. His character is both endearing and terrible, but his sympathy for Wendy makes him a good guy:

We lay side by side looking at the vaulted ceiling. He struggled into his front pocket and with a shaky hand brought out a baggie of white oblong pills. Solissan.

“A token, Wendy. Remember your dear Holman . . . . Imagine what you’d get for that on the black market.”
“Is there a black market?” I asked.
“We’re working on it.”
“You are dear, Holman. Though I’m sure coming from you there’s a price.”
“I’m appointing you chairwoman of my library committee.”
“Me, Holman? Why?”
“Because you’ll get it done. You came to my funeral. You were the only one. I don’t need anything elaborate. Just dignified. A place with some shade. An old knotted tree, some shrubs around the entrance. Do charge for parking, though. People lose all sense of virtue when it comes to parking.”

The absurdity reflected here and throughout the novel makes this work stand apart from that of other contemporary writers. Although the ending of the novel is a little conventional and anti-climactic, the process of getting there is worth any predictable aspects. Slavin’s short stories (published in the collection The Woman Who Cut Off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club) showed that she was proficient at creating a world around a story and a believable blend of reality and fantasy, but Carnivore Diet takes this talent a step further. It’s hard to imagine what kind of world she’ll tackle in her next novel, but her debut sets the stakes very high.