Bookshops are coming down with mythic re-tellings. For me, taking myths as the scaffolding for fiction is usually a marker of a lack of imagination. In the same way that X-Factor churned out cookie cutter pop stars in the 2000s, publishers continually release re-imaginings of some new Greek goddess. It’s a tired genre in need of resuscitation: step in AK Blakemore’s second novel The Glutton, a strangely wonderful reimagining of the life of Tarare, a man made mythic by his overwhelming hunger. Taking inspiration from Pierre-François Percy’s 1804 Mémoire sur la polyphagia [Memory on Polyphagia], Blakemore constructs the peasant and showman’s life from historical research on the French Revolution.
At one point or another we’ve all thought to ourselves: “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse!” But what if this starvation was so all-engrossing that it took over every part of you, your thoughts, your actions? Blakemore’s Tarare grapples with his ravenous appetite, racking him with guilt as it pushes him to ever deeper depravity. He feeds on a dead rat, a bucket of offal, old browning apple peels, but nothing brings relief. “The hunger is all he is… the things that should make him happy... make him hungry instead.” So, it’s no surprise when The Glutton opens and closes with two doctors discussing Tarare’s condition, searching fruitlessly for a medical rationale. There are no answers offered up, so it’s brilliant when Blakemore mines the reader’s capacity for empathy, as The Glutton’s anti-hero carries out more disgusting acts, not least possibly eating a toddler.
The most compelling parts of The Glutton are seen when Tarare, shackled to a military hospital bed, tells his life story to a nun. His body writhes under the blanket, occasionally revealing his descended stomach or his jaw that unhinges like a snake. It is in the first two of three parts that this dynamic is explored, but the third frustratingly changes tact by exploring Tarare’s experience as a soldier.
A stylistic choice to present dialogue without punctuation or formatting to demarcate speech jarred with me throughout. I can’t help but think that the reading experience would have been greatly improved if dialogue was set out in new paragraphs. But these are minor personal quibbles to what is an incredibly impressive follow-up to the critically acclaimed The Manningtree Witches. The Glutton is a delicious novel on hunger and survival that is as original as it is refreshing.
