You Don't Eat Cannibals (book)

Take a step back, forget your bearings, and momentarily set aside the boxes we use to categorize life: humans on one side, animals on the other. Immerse yourself in that unsettling zone where man, stripped of his humanity, and the beast—capable of emotions and sensitivity—stand face to face. Who is the predator, who is the prey? Where do fear, barbarism, or extreme violence lie, and where do compassion and philosophy reside?

In this book steeped in anthropomorphism, Stéphanie Artarit weaves a cruel plot and pushes the boundaries of darkness without ever wallowing in the grim or sordid.

A story of love and vengeance, of fierce beasts and humans, where the abominable, the unbearable, and the unthinkable are pierced by the candor and fragile luminosity of the heroine, Bambi, around whom (very) dark passions rage.

The action takes place in the Pyrenees in the mid-1970s. A dilapidated, isolated house, the theater of the unthinkable, where a shattered family ignored by social services lives—or survives: a missing father, a helpless mother, two degenerate twins, Sam and Valerien, a violent older brother, Martin, an absolute bastard, a dog... and a young adolescent, Bambi, the precarious pillar of this teetering balance. To escape this hopeless daily life, she regularly finds refuge in a nearby zoo. Caught during yet another sneaky visit, she is taken to the owner of the place, Noel Rivière, who, moved by her misery (and her ethereal, unreal beauty...), hires her as an apprentice.

This could have been the start of a fairy tale, redemption through love, the bastard permanently neutralized... and a breather for the reader.

But no.

The zoo serves as the backdrop for the second part of the story, which introduces new characters... a little girl, Feline, and a chimpanzee, Adam, placed in an isolated enclosure upon arrival because he was aggressive and unable to live among his own kind.

Humans with primitive animality, animals with astonishing humanity... a deranged, fierce, and heartbreaking Jungle Book. A noir novel with fluid, poetic writing.

A breathless read, almost devoured in one go (in two sittings) because it’s impossible to catch your breath before finding out how far the author will push the limits and what fate she has in store for her characters...

You Don’t Eat Cannibals Stéphanie ARTARIT Belfond Noir

Some parts of your message remind me of the movie *The Animal Kingdom*. Thanks for the info about a book that seems addictive. You must have been really moved if you took the time to mention it here 😉

And that’s when we find out Kola is a literary critic 😄. If I’m wrong, I’ll have to think about it! Thanks anyway, it’s really tempting 😍

Parts of your message remind me of the film *The Animal Kingdom*.

... in which leaning toward animality was a disease. Or a curse?

The book is as striking as Among Beasts by Colin Niel (I know you loved it ;-) ), where the lion had the intelligence and emotions that some humans in the book seemed to lack.

We’d never say an animal, no matter how wild or dangerous, is inhuman. But to describe a human who’s committed an atrocity, we borrow words from the animal kingdom: they’re a wild beast, a predator, a beast, and the victim would be prey.

The book disturbingly shows how humans, through their actions, can place themselves outside humanity—but that this inhumanity doesn’t grant them the right to belong to the animal world...

Thanks for the tip about a book that sounds addictive. You must’ve been really moved if you’re taking the time to talk about it here ;)

My pleasure. I love this peaceful section, with its exchanges full of healthy differences and free from arguments :)

And that's when we find out Kola is a literary critic 😄. And if I'm wrong, we'll have to think about it! Thanks anyway, it makes you want to read it 😍

Thanks to you... who might be very familiar with some of the situations described in the book. Hence the frequent touristc cravings, Atlantic, tropics, Mozambque, or even Antarctic 😜

I love all of Kola....except Antarctica 🤦😂

The book is as striking as Colin Niel’s Among Beasts (I know you loved it ;-)

Like all of Colin Niel’s novels ;) Well, the four I’ve read so far…