In the journey that follows, the “hallucenogenic mix of elements in the adventure” are all revealed to “have roots in his ‘real’ life”. He is given a Disney World wristband by Dulcie that she says is able to keep the disease from advancing any further into Cameron's brain. Unconvinced at first by Dulcie's suggestion, Cameron changes his mind when he is attacked by fire giants and the mysterious Wizard of Reckoning - a masked figure wearing a silver space suit who is intent on killing him. Cameron starts thinking about this journey and how he can succeed at it. 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. She says she has been sent to give Cameron a mission to save the world from a villain known as the Wizard of Reckoning.

When Cameron is hospitalized, an angel named Dulcie appears as a possibly hallucination-induced vision. 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. This public hallucination gets Cameron sent to multiple drug counselors, all while his hallucinations continue. 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. Cameron's apparent social exclusion is emphasized when the author introduces his sister, Jenna, who is described as perfect. His father is a college physics professor his mother is a community college English teacher. Plot summary Ĭameron Smith is a high school slacker from Texas who is on “a slow but uncontrollable skid to nowhere” living a somewhat aimless life. It follows the experiences of high school junior Cameron Smith, who gets diagnosed with transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. Going Bovine is a 2009 surreal dark comedy novel by Libba Bray.

Going bovine