Going Bovine
| Author | Libba Bray |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Yuan Lee |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Young adult fiction surreal dark comedy |
| Publisher | Delacorte Press |
|
Publication date
|
2009 |
| Media type | Print Hardcover |
| Pages | 496 |
| ISBN |
Going Bovine is a 2009 surreal dark comedy novel by Libba Bray. It follows the experiences of high school junior Cameron Smith as he suffers from transmissible spongiform encephalopathy.
Cameron Smith is a high school slacker from Texas who is on “a slow but uncontrollable skid to nowhere” living a somewhat aimless life. His father is a college physics professor; his mother is a community college English teacher. Cameron’s apparent social exclusion is emphasized when the author introduces his sister, Jenna, who is described as perfect. One of the first scenes in the novel is of Cam having what he thinks is a marijuana-induced hallucination of flames during his English class. This public hallucination gets Cameron sent to multiple drug counselors, all while his hallucinations continue. Cameron’s life starts to spiral out of control when he is diagnosed with Creutzfeldt–Jakob variant BSE (also known as mad cow disease), possibly contracted from the cafeteria at his school or his minimum-wage job at the fast food joint Buddha Burger.
While Cameron is hospitalized, the character Dulcie is introduced as a hallucination-induced vision. She is described to have been sent to give Cameron a mission to save the world from the character unknown to Cameron as Wizard of Reckoning. Dulcie has pink hair, wears boots, and spray paints her wings; she tells him that he can possibly save his life, but only by first finding Dr. X, a time traveling physicist. Cameron starts thinking about his journey and how he can succeed and get the most out of it. Unconvinced at first by Dulcie’s suggestion, Cameron changes his mind when he is attacked by fire giants and a mysterious Wizard of Reckoning—a masked figure wearing a silver space suit who is intent on killing him. He is given a Disney World wristband by Dulcie that is explained to be able to keep the disease from advancing any further into Cameron's brain. In the journey that follows, the “hallucenogenic mix of elements in the adventure” are all revealed to “have roots in his ‘real’ life”.
Cameron sneaks out of the hospital with his roommate and high school classmate, Gonzo, a video game playing dwarf with an overprotective mother on a quest that takes them from Texas to New Orleans and into Florida, all the while pursued by the Wizard of Reckoning and his fire giants. Throughout the next section of the story, “guided by random signs”, Cameron and Gonzo take a bus to New Orleans, where Mardi Gras is happening. While they stay in New Orleans, Cameron goes to a party with two strangers who are explained to be natives of the city. At this party, Cameron meets a garden gnome who is explained to actually be a Norse god named Balder, who was trapped in garden gnome form before the plot of the novel started by the god Loki, the Norse trickster who is not mentioned or explained about any more in the novel. Balder joins the two boys in their road trip.
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