This time last year, I was pleased to discover a small independent publisher of Latin American fiction, Charco Press. Unsure what to expect, I requested a review copy, and loved the novel that came my way. The Wind That Lays Waste is about the unexpected intimacy forced upon four lonely people – two motherless teenagers, an evangelical preacher and a cynical mechanic – when a car breaks down in the pause before a storm in rural Argentina. This year, I looked forward to the next book from the same author (Dead Girls) as a review copy, and bought a couple more. Here’s what I thought.
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Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz translated by Sarah Moses and Caroline Orloff
The unnamed narrator, living with her unnamed husband and baby in a slummy rural corner of an unnamed country, lives on a knife edge between madness and madness. Sometimes this takes the form of obsessional lust: an addiction to sex with her husband, an unnamed motorcyclist and fantasies involving a stag. Latterly, it manifests as mental illness, earning her a hospital admission and some therapy sessions where – of course – she doesn’t give much away. From the beginning, her madness is expressed in an all-encompassing rage.
I was drawn to this rage as the shadow-side of postnatal depression: she hates her baby, and the couple who created him, including herself. As it went on, and on, I tired of her sense of entrapment as much as she did and wished she’d put some of the energy she devoted to fury into something less destructive. There are hints of an education, and interest in writing, making me wonder if this Argentinian author’s debut novel was semiautobiographical. Longlisted for the Man Booker International and shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness prizes in 2018, it’s admired by many, but not by me.
I was drawn to this rage as the shadow-side of postnatal depression: she hates her baby, and the couple who created him, including herself. As it went on, and on, I tired of her sense of entrapment as much as she did and wished she’d put some of the energy she devoted to fury into something less destructive. There are hints of an education, and interest in writing, making me wonder if this Argentinian author’s debut novel was semiautobiographical. Longlisted for the Man Booker International and shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness prizes in 2018, it’s admired by many, but not by me.
Holiday Heart by Margarita Garcia Robayo translated by Charlotte Coombe
Originally from Colombia, Lucia and Pablo have made their home in the USA. With good jobs and two precocious children, it looks as if their experience of migration has been a success. But their marriage is crumbling and Pablo is in deep trouble at work. Feeling excluded from Lucia’s parenting project, he ploughs his nostalgia for his native land into a fantasy novel unlikely to find a place on the bookshop shelves.
Things come to a head when Pablo is diagnosed with heart disease and Lucia takes their six-year-old twins for a respite in a Miami aparthotel. Unflinchingly honest with touches of humour – albeit with time jumps that had me occasionally confused – this is an engaging novel about marriage, migration, snobbery and social class, and the hollow magnetism of the American Dream.
Things come to a head when Pablo is diagnosed with heart disease and Lucia takes their six-year-old twins for a respite in a Miami aparthotel. Unflinchingly honest with touches of humour – albeit with time jumps that had me occasionally confused – this is an engaging novel about marriage, migration, snobbery and social class, and the hollow magnetism of the American Dream.
Dead Girls by Selva Almada translated by Annie McDermott
Three girls / young women in provincial Argentina; three 1980s murders still unresolved. Shocked by one that occurred in her own district at the beginning of her teens, and conscious of the normalisation of violence against women in the community, Selva Almada spent three gruelling years researching their stories and another three months writing the book. The result is a parallel bludgeoning, a furious outpouring of collective grief and rage.
Having admired and enjoyed the author’s fiction, perhaps I paid insufficient attention to the publisher’s reference to journalistic fiction. Journalistic definitely, focusing both on the facts of the cases (plus a few others) and the author’s attempts to track them down, including regular visits to a medium and buying a litre bottle of Fanta in a café. Moving back and forth between the three women’s threads, I’m afraid I struggled to separate them in my head. I’d have liked less author and more fiction or, failing that, more context: is it relevant that these murders occurred as Argentina returned to democracy; was violence against women treated differently by the authorities and violence against men? I’m sure this book will find its right audience, but it’s not me.
Having admired and enjoyed the author’s fiction, perhaps I paid insufficient attention to the publisher’s reference to journalistic fiction. Journalistic definitely, focusing both on the facts of the cases (plus a few others) and the author’s attempts to track them down, including regular visits to a medium and buying a litre bottle of Fanta in a café. Moving back and forth between the three women’s threads, I’m afraid I struggled to separate them in my head. I’d have liked less author and more fiction or, failing that, more context: is it relevant that these murders occurred as Argentina returned to democracy; was violence against women treated differently by the authorities and violence against men? I’m sure this book will find its right audience, but it’s not me.
 | First flight is the prompt for this week’s flash fiction challenge, so I’ve gone to South America – Peru in fact – with a 99-word story based on my travels over twenty years ago. In case you’re wondering, my Spanish isn’t great, but it was better then and I definitely wouldn’t have made this mistake! (I felt queasy enough as it was.) |
Viewing the Nazca lines
“After breakfast is best. The first flight.”
Gulping coffee and empanadas de queso at sunrise before cycling to the airstrip, I wondered if I’d heard him right. My stomach lurched as the plane vaulted the perimeter fence. Just us, our guide and the pilot: no other tourists to block the view. Pre-Columbian geoglyphs etched in the desert: how did they make them? Why?
There’s the dog! The spider! The plane tilts, wings verging on horizontal. Hummingbird. Monkey. Tree. I cup my mouth, breakfast tastes sour the second time around. How did I misunderstand it? Definitely breakfast after: desayuno después.
“After breakfast is best. The first flight.”
Gulping coffee and empanadas de queso at sunrise before cycling to the airstrip, I wondered if I’d heard him right. My stomach lurched as the plane vaulted the perimeter fence. Just us, our guide and the pilot: no other tourists to block the view. Pre-Columbian geoglyphs etched in the desert: how did they make them? Why?
There’s the dog! The spider! The plane tilts, wings verging on horizontal. Hummingbird. Monkey. Tree. I cup my mouth, breakfast tastes sour the second time around. How did I misunderstand it? Definitely breakfast after: desayuno después.
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