Summary
Summary
When a nameless, struggling actor in 1970s New York gets the call that an enigmatic director wants him for an art film set in the Amazon, he doesn't hesitate: he flies to South America, no questions asked. He quickly realizes he's made a mistake. He's replacing another actor who quit after seeing the script-a script the director now claims doesn't exist. The movie is over budget. The production team seems headed for a breakdown. The air is so wet that the celluloid film disintegrates. But what the actor doesn't realize is that the greatest threat might be the town itself, and the mysterious shadow economy that powers this remote jungle outpost. Entrepreneurial Americans, international drug traffickers, and M-19 guerillas are all fighting for South America's future-and the groups aren't as distinct as you might think. The actor thought this would be a role that would change his life. Now he's worried if he'll survive it. Inspired by a true story from the annals of 1970s Italian horror film, and told in dazzlingly precise prose, We Eat Our Own is a resounding literary debut, a thrilling journey behind the scenes of a shocking film and a thoughtful commentary on violence and its repercussions.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In Wilson's gripping, ambitious debut novel, a struggling actor flies to the rain forests of Colombia to star in Jungle Bloodbath, a grind house horror film directed by an eccentric Italian auteur. Roughly based on the infamously brutal production of Cannibal Holocaust, the novel tracks a wide cast of characters, including guerilla rebels, effects artists, and the director himself, as they slowly descend into barbarism. Interspersed with the alternating perspectives are transcripts from an Italian court, where the director stands accused of abuse, negligence, and murder, most of which seem to have occurred during the grueling shoot. In the name of supposed verisimilitude, the crew sets fire to an indigenous village and mutilates animals at whim, all without seeing a script. The drama builds palpably and haphazardly, drawing the invading crew and invaded population together until, in a moment of cathartic bloodshed, reality and fiction collide. Though Wilson novel's reach occasionally exceeds its grasp, the story never flags thanks to the ferocious momentum of her prose. This is a vivid, scary novel. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Here (at last?) is the cutting literary deconstruction of the 1980 exploitation film Cannibal Holocaust that, it is fair to say, we didn't know we needed. In Wilson's sweaty, scuzzy, late-'70s take, it's called Jungle Bloodbath, the latest mondo screamer from Italian grindhouser Ugo Velluto and that's the only info that Richard, a desperate New York City actor, has before accepting the gig and flying down to a Colombia teetering on revolution, where Velluto is experimenting with a new kind of raw, scriptless realism. Like the film shoot, Wilson's story is presented out of order, intercutting among such points of view as the film's costars, its special-effects team, an M-19 guerrilla, and a future Italian trial at which Velluto stands accused of murder. Richard's chapters, the closest thing we have to a (ripped-out) spine, are told in omniscient second-person (Here is something you don't know), which vividly, viscerally, almost sickeningly drives home his utter disorientation among staring natives and madmen filmmakers. Like Cannibal Holocaust, Wilson's debut wrestles with real versus simulated violence, with Velluto getting the punchline: There's no such thing as murder in the jungle. This is the smartest kind of horror, one that understands and employs the trappings while making us squirmingly aware of the moral contortions required to enjoy them. A highly unusual breath of fetid air.--Kraus, Daniel Copyright 2016 Booklist
Library Journal Review
In 1979, struggling New York City actor Adrian White flies to Colombia on six hours' notice, thrilled to be offered a part in what his agent describes as an "Italian art film." Upon arrival on set near the Amazon, he meets the volatile director, Ugo Velluto, and the rest of the cast and crew. No one seems to have a definite script to give him and scenes he witnesses featuring indigenous people seem more horror than art. Throw in drug trafficking, guerrilla fighters, and harsh jungle conditions and lines begin to blur between fantasy and reality. Told from multiple characters' perspectives, interspersed with transcripts from a postfilming trial, this is a taut, entertaining thriller from first-time novelist and St. Louis bookseller Wilson. VERDICT At once an almost-anthropological treatise on the consequences of forced contact with indigenous rain forest peoples, an ode to the bloody exploitation horror films of the 1970s and 1980s (Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust), and a skillfully interwoven political thriller, this is an exciting debut that reads like a perfectly paced horror novel but offers an unusually close and multilayered examination of violence and art that should interest diverse audiences.-Jennifer B. -Stidham, Houston Community Coll. Northeast © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.