THE KNOT IN HIS GUT does not go away during The Food of the Gods. It grows. He could not have planned a more perfect storm—horror piling upon horror until he himself hates the movies he has chosen, wonders what could be wrong with him that he wanted to see such things, what has gone wrong with him—as a boy, a student, a brother, the Kid.
Shane by contrast loves The Food of the Gods; he can see it in his brother’s face. It does not hurt that the main character, Morgan, is a professional football player, or that his best friend and sidekick, Davis, is also a football player, or that their rapport is just like Shane and his friends’—large, strapping fellows, working hard and playing hard. When Morgan and Davis are not playing football they’re hunting deer on horseback with rifles and dogs—so
