TERENCE DIAMOND

Set on a fabulist’s map of America, Big Pink Meat is a comic dystopian tale of a teen transboy who gets his start in life working the graveyard shift in a Danish ham factory. Stone, the eponymous “pink meat” is determined to get to college at all costs in order to escape his abusive alcoholic mother. When his plans are thwarted, the comedy turns black.  In flight from local law enforcement the lad takes off into the woods where he suffers an unexpected and singular moment of transformation while attempting to reach a mythical island on the horizon. Roaming heedlessly along seaside and into deep forests on a tortuously circuitous route full of setbacks and regressions he finally reaches the island, which proves to be a broken down city-state teeming with the diversions of drugs, alcohol, and women. With hard-won street smarts Stone embarks on a new life dedicated to artistic expression.