The Cows

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Roxanne : Yeah? And how would you know so much about an obscure avant-garde novelist as all that? Your bluster butters no parsnips with us, buddy boy. We have this! (Five cows simultaneously hold up the photocopied picture.) This was a slow burner for me. Three women's stories, not knowing each other until close to the end. Each of their journeys fraught in their own way. Women generally have a very different and often difficult journey then men, in my experience for sure. The question over whether it is wrong to have a child because you want one, potentially without consulting the potential father – that’s more complex. As someone whose father was kept fully apprised of their existence but who decided before my birth that family was not for him, I don’t think the child is necessarily missing out but there will always be questions. Every situation is different but lightweight fiction such as this isn’t really the place to get into all of this. Apparently there is nothing like abject humiliation to ensure that we see the best and worst of women. Indeed, as Cam is vilified by a fellow feminist on radio, O’Porter reveals the central thread that ties the book together. “The irony is that it is you boxing women into these roles, not men,” Cam tells her female host. Women’s greatest enemy, it seems, is not the patriarchy. It is each other.

The bad news is that so much of the understanding of the character comes from the sheer, incredible nastiness of the narrative. During the course of this relatively short novel the main character (Steven) is involved with (whether as a player or a spectator) bestiality, coprophagia, rape, murder, and mutilation of such grand and graphic extremes that I cannot recommend this book to anyone. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone diving into this one. Why you should buy this: It’s interesting to me that the book I kept thinking of while reading ‘COWS’ was ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ by Viktor Frankl. ‘COWS’ itself is just that, a young man who longs to break free from the chains that he’s been born into and find happiness and meaning, if only it is an idea of what it should be and should look like. Stokoe has crafted a story that does have significant depth and had me really thinking and it is an engaging piece of fiction, if you can get past that layer of filth and look for the treasure chest resting at the bottom of the sea. Hmmm where to begin. OK well let's begin with the five star rating system. If I allocated stars for books based on enjoyment and pleasure levels would this get five stars? No. Likewise if I allocated stars on how widely read I think a book ought to be, would this get five stars there? Definitely, a no. For sheer originality, uniqueness of vision, and bravura storytelling, and the fact that it has the impact of a freight train, this book most certainly gets five stars from me.Daisy (a left-leaning cow) : I believe it neatly encapsulates the human male infantile mindset, the fear and loathing of the mother, the horror of the female power of birth, of creation if you will, and the homo-erotic desire to be a man amongst men and to take charge of your manly destiny, all of which it appears has to be achieved by killing the mother figures. It’s all too lamely Freudian for me. Moo! Moo! I say trample him on aesthetic grounds, not on moral grounds. Simone (svelte, but nobody’s fool) : You got to be joking, pal. In our world you’re famous. Can’t write a book like Cows and not get noticed by us actual cows. We’re not cultural ignoramuses like sheep – they just watch daytime TV. But we like our Andy Warhol wallpaper and we appreciate the cover art on Pink Floyd’s under-appreciated Atom heart Mother album. Although side two is very self-indulgent, it’s true. I have a vinyl copy.

Overall, the story is uplifting and is a celebration of the strength of women, and encourages women to have confidence in their strengths. For me, it fell a little short of its premise, but I think it will appeal to women looking for a new idea on feminism. I always try to give authors the benefit of the doubt, unfortunately, in this case, I can’t. This book is supposed to be THE BOOK to read this year. It’s not! It will never fail to amaze me why publishers grab hold of a book and make it sound like we’ll miss our chance of a lifetime if we don’t read books they’ve marketed to the hilt. I know of so many really gifted authors who are overlooked by publishers, yet, they go ahead and publish books like this, telling us females, what an outstanding read we’re going to have. Rubbish! At the start of the book, Dawn O’Porter gives us the dictionary description of a cow. Part of the herd. Used for milk and beef. They produce milk, calves and then get slaughtered for their meat, which will most probably end up in dog food. Why therefore has she chosen these beautiful creatures with long eyelashes as the title for this book? Are women part of a herd? Is that what we’ve become as women? I know I’m grey and maybe I’ll be criticised for being “out of touch” with the “real world” but this book offended me on so many levels. It was strange to read that O’Porter wrote this after herself giving birth. I am in full agreement that a woman can be complete without progeny or indeed without a partner. I even agree with Cam that it does tend to be women who put each other into boxes rather than the men. What I was less comfortable with was the rather vicious way women who did not follow The Way Of Cam were depicted. Sophie is oppressed by her husband in exchange for his cash. Stella becomes a bonkers sperm-thief in her desperate scramble for motherhood. Mel is a bundle of varicose veins who urinates when she sneezes. There is little chance of missing the point here.

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Stella – A woman struggling to cope with the death of her twin sister, dealing with health issues and wants nothing more than to have a child of her own. Dawn O'Porter's third novel has much in common with Joanna Trollope's latest book, City of Friends. Both follow four women as they navigate the embattled landscape of modern womanhood: the difficulty of juggling a professional career with a fraught personal life, the influence of digital media on women's perception of themselves, the contradictions and conflicts of contemporary feminism. The book begins in January, yet it is April before the suspicions raised by those first lines are resolved: “A great unease and sadness had come upon me and I could no longer see the beauty in anything. I pushed everything away from me in a sort of madness.” This is a book which pauses regularly to savour life’s tiny nows – a newborn lamb’s head, a cup of hot tea pressed into a cold hand – yet also one in which recent history haunts the present. It can be no coincidence of language that he refers to the depression and mania that caused him to move home to rural Longford as “the Past”.

This book was just so honest and refreshing and I really loved a lot of what was discussed in it. From simple pizza farts (yes, women fart too!) to open discussion about why a woman might not want a baby, I appreciated it all. Tara's story was particularly engrossing due to how it spirals but more so because, for me, how the media treats her and the ever-changing face and mood of the internet's opinion. I loved Cam's blog and her posts which we get to read. I feel like if her blog was a real thing, I'd definitely be a fan. We need more women like Cam int he world for sure. Those who aren't afraid of saying don't use your gender as an excuse, just go and do it and demand what you want until you get it. Stella, while not my favourite character, was an intriguing one to follow as her story showed what it can take for someone to become an online troll. As a celebrity, I'm certain Dawn O' Porter has had to deal with many, many trolls herself and I like how she kind of 'unveiled' the face and mindset of a troll to show they are something to be pitied and not to be scared of. Stella went completely crazy for me and I found myself reeling at times from her decisions but she was certainly entertaining!Think whatever made it move is happy now in the fields of the hereafter? You believe in that kind of thing? Forget it. Meat doesn't have the brains.It just works till it dies or until someone cuts it up." Anyway, in total I didn't find anything deep, or moving, or intellectual here. I didn't find any inner beauty that only those who "get it" can see. I didn't find this to be an important novel in any capacity. You can paint a canvas with shit, and in the right place at the right time, you'll find enough influential people to convince others of its genius that you have a following. That's what "COWS" really means to me.

But Steven is surrounded by violence and clinically insane people. His mother, the Hagbeast, Cripps the predator and crazy Lucy.Stella is the most dysfunctional, obsessed and awful human being possible. Her behaviour would be enough to send any man running for the hills. Author John Connell is not unsentimental. He does muse on his family's connection to the land, Celtic myth and his own emotional reaction to the cycles of birth and death. But he does the hard physical toil as well - putting in long hours of grueling work for a business that only just pays for itself. This book is an explanation of why he wants to do this.