By Abi Palmer
Makina Books, Paperback, £14
I came to Slugs having loved On Trampolining (by Rebecca Perry), the previous publication by Makina Books, and with very little notion of what it was about. My initial feelings about slugs varied from indifference to disgust, and I had no plans of learning more about them. So finishing the book having watched a David Attenborough BBC snippet of slug mating not once but multiple times – I had to share it with everyone around me, you see – and having gained a new sense of familiarity with the gastropod was definitely a surprise!
Slugs: A Manifesto is a hybrid non-fiction work in which artist Abi Palmer retraces the history of her fascination for the mollusc that has become her creative and, dare-I-say, lifestyle muse. Slugs are both a physical presence, a metaphor and a point of entry to different aspects of her life, from queerness to disability to the art world.
It’s a charming, funny, thought-provoking short read that will have you consider your relationship with your body, with animals and with the world around you. It also ponders the question of why some bodies are preferred to the detriment of others, why some are more welcome.
It made me want to embrace squishiness, embrace fluids and fluidity, and impermanence, and elasticity, take up space and mind my own business and let go of shame, be okay with my sluggish body and go free! What’s not to love?