The Instructions
Hilarious account of the trials and tribulations of a guerrilla-style group of animal rights activists
‘You’re not alone, you’re part of something bigger.’ This is Mol talking, a slightly nerdy teacher who finds himself getting involved with a group of radical animal rights activists at the behest of his childhood friend, Nora. The story begins with him trying to clamber out of a ditch in pitch blackness, dressed in a pink pig suit after an arson attack on the biggest slaughterhouse in the Netherlands.
From his prison cell – we know how things turned out from the beginning – he tries to do what Nora has told him to do: draw up instructions for future activists. But instead, he ends up writing his autobiography and a detailed portrait of all the zany characters in the group, reminiscent of Money Heist or Ocean’s Eleven: from Nora, the guns-blazing leader he has a secret crush on, to her boyfriend, the crazy explosives guy, and the femme fatale of the gang.
It turns out they each have their own reasons for getting involved. Mol, for example, has long felt like an outsider. As the driver, he is only tangentially involved in the group’s actions at first. He becomes more invested when he realises the appalling conditions animals are forced to endure, and he stops eating meat.
The activists’ shared anger about factory farming becomes palpable in the vivid descriptions of the destruction they wreak. Unsettling passages about the conditions in slaughterhouses reveal Trujillo’s depth of knowledge on the subject. More than in her previous novels, which were clearly inspired by the Latin American tradition, The Instructions follows in the footsteps of socially engaged writers like Mark Twain and Multatuli, whose characters are flawed and complex.
Mol also quotes Twain: ‘The two most important days in your life are when you’re born and when you find out why,’ only to conclude, ‘You just hope that doesn’t apply to the animals in slaughterhouses.’ The Instructions is the story of an impossible love and the desire to be part of something bigger – but above all, it’s a searing indictment of animal suffering.
Rights
Cossee International Agency
Stella Rieck
rieck@cossee.com
Carolina Trujillo (b. 1970) is a Dutch-Uruguayan writer and columnist. After graduating from the Amsterdam Film Academy, she published 'De bastaard van Mal Abrigo' (The Bastard of Mal Abrigo, 2002) in Dutch, followed by the novels De terugkeer van 'Lupe Garcia' (The Return of Lupe Garcia, 2009) – which was nominated for the AKO Literature Prize – 'De zangbreker' (The Songbreaker, 2014) and 'Vrije radicalen' (Free Radicals, 2017). In 2019, she earned the Jan Hanlo Essay Prize for 'Meisjes in blessuretijd' (Girls During Injury Time). She also writes columns about politics, sports and factory farming for NRC.