Eartheater

 

Eartheater / Dolores Reyes
trans. from the Spanish by Julia Sanches
NY: HarperVia, 2020, c2019.
224 p.

We meet our unnamed narrator in an Argentian barrio, where her mother has died violently and her aunt is now taking care of her and her brother Walter. Until she discovers that when she eats earth, she can see visions of how someone died. Her aunt is horrifed by this and leaves them to their own devices. 

Eating dirt, mainly from where a dead person has walked, gives her visions, and once this knowledge gets out she is inundated by requests from people with lost loved ones to help them find the truth. She is revered for her skill, while at the same time also avoided and shunned for the same thing. 

This book tackles the epidemic of femicide in Argentina, bringing up so many issues of violence against women which almost always goes unpunished. It also investigates poverty and class, showing the results very clearly in this small family of two. 

I was drawn into the story immediately, and felt that the first half was very strong, as she discovers her talents and begins to use them. In the second half, she finds herself a boyfriend (who is also a cop, something which adds to the social commentary of the storyline). And she and her brother and his friends try to avenge the death of one of their crowd when she discovers how he died. This section felt a bit like a different kind of story, to me. There is frequent description of she and her boyfriend and their sexual encounters, sometimes graphic. It didn't seem to serve any purpose in the narrative other than to be edgy, maybe? I felt uncomfortable with it, especially when I read the author bio and saw that her eldest son had the same name as the boyfriend in the book. And the big scene of violence at the end felt a bit too cinematic, like it was something observed, not real to the characters. 

Anyhow, this book has received a lot of attention, which is why I was able to find it in my library system. I thought the concept and the setup of the story, and most of the first half, really deserved all the hype - it had promise. But the second half let me down, like the author wasn't sure how to end it. Great idea, not so great book in the end.