{"product_id":"bloat","title":"Bloat","description":"\u003cp\u003eA dark and consuming novel about oil, power, beauty, and the quiet resistance of women in a dystopia where death is not the ultimate harm \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eMy fellow Venezuelans, we're going to swim in black gold. Remember this year: 1999. We're not just reclaiming our spring, our Thames, our Seine. We're reclaiming our country.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn an alternate Caracas, the oil fields have dried up, and executives have implemented a new system for oil production: collecting corpses and processing them into necrofuel. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn four interlocking sections that unfold in reverse chronology, \u003ci\u003eBloat\u003c\/i\u003e follows the lives of women who live under this exploitative regime. Mercedita grieves the death of her father and resents the intrusion of investigators into her home. Merced, a sex worker living with an oil executive, struggles to retain her agency amid an increasingly restricted life. After Mamé goes missing, a watchman tries to find her while he and his nephew participate in the paramilitary that enabled her disappearance. And Mercy battles an illness while working at a restaurant frequented by the powerful. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eRaquel Abend's first book translated into English explores totalitarianism in a country with two major exports: oil and pageant queens. In visceral prose that foregrounds the bleakness of its dystopia, \u003ci\u003eBloat\u003c\/i\u003e makes tangible the grief, ecological devastation, and violence faced by women in a city where bodies are primarily a means to an economic end. And yet, these women resist their dehumanization, forging community and owning their desires despite the darkness of their world.","brand":"Graywolf Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54559237472622,"sku":"9781644454275","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/files\/imageloader_eca99371-7d1e-47f7-86f2-d6f01489b784.jpg?v=1786638147","url":"https:\/\/tenderbuttonsbooks.com\/products\/bloat","provider":"Tender Buttons Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}