Having read Chana Porter’s novella The Seep and been delighted by its weird atmosphere and the way it lingered comfortably in the bizarre, I hoped The Thick and the Lean would deliver some of those same elements. This novel did all that and more, engaging with relevant real-world issues we face today in its social satire through a fictional dystopia.

The Thick and the Lean alternates point of view between its two protagonists: Beatrice Bolano, a woman raised in a religious cult that prizes starvation above all and reviles the consumption of food, and Reiko Rimando, a woman who seeks social elevation through education only to have her path to upward mobility yanked out from under her. Interspersed throughout the novel are excerpts from a fictional fable titled The Kitchen Maid, an outlawed text both women value.

I will say out of the gate that I suspect this novel will make a lot of people uncomfortable. Regardless of how much we acknowledge it on an individual level, food and sex are both heavily policed in our society, particularly when it comes to women. Both require bodily autonomy, both are often seen as hedonistic or offensive to display voracious appetites for, and both can evoke strong reactions because of their visceral, often eroticized nature. Porter capitalizes on this for the premise of the novel: a world in which sex is both casual and holy and where eating is immoral and taboo. Clear parallels are drawn between this world and Western, Christianity-influenced cultures.

To that end, the novel leans into vivid descriptions of food and sex while tackling the thorny ideological underpinnings that might—and probably should, in certain cases—make readers uncomfortable, especially when juxtaposed with the capitalist exploitation, desirability politics, purity culture, and ongoing attacks on bodily autonomy of the present day. The Thick and the Lean makes its points clearly while also providing an engaging story with protagonists who make flawed, believable decisions with their agency. 

A brief content note that The Thick and The Lean heavily centers on disordered eating, fatphobia, and religious shame for readers sensitive to these issues.

Overall, The Thick and the Lean was a sometimes horrifying, sometimes hopeful read that captivated me from start to finish. The novel handles its intense themes both deftly and unapologetically with imaginative concepts and engaging prose. Chana Porter is a unique voice whose work I will be eagerly following for the foreseeable future. For anyone looking for dystopian science fiction that cuts to the heart of several relevant issues of our time through its satire, The Thick and the Lean is a worthy pickup.

Thank you to Gallery / Saga Press and NetGalley for an advance review copy. All opinions are my own.