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. 

Elena Knows

 

Elena Knows / Claudia Pineiro
trans. from the Spanish by Frances Riddle
Edinburgh: Charco Press, 2021, c2007.
143 p.

I picked up this book thanks to the many recommendations I've seen for it, and for this writer in general. But I didn't know much about the actual story going in. That made it a surprise in many ways, and a very good one. I really liked this; the style, the character development and the structure of the book all impressed me. 

Elena has Parkinson's. And this plays a big role in how she can function in the story, and why. She has lived with her adult daughter Rita for a long time; but Rita has just been found hanged in the bell tower of the local church. Elena knows that there is someone responsible - there is no way Rita would have even gone near the church on a rainy day, to begin with.

Her quest for someone to listen to her takes her across Buenos Aires to call in a debt, to get another woman's help. The book is broken into sections "Second Pill", "Third Pill" etc, as Elena has to depend on her medication taking effect to be able to continue moving, quite literally. Her journey is an epic one, by train and taxi to get to an outlying suburb and find the woman she's looking for. When she gets there, assumptions are turned upside down, truths come out, and Elena must question what she thinks she knows. 

The structure is fantastic: it really highlights Elena's restricted physical movement, contrasted with the constant refrain of the things Elena knows. Pineiro is a crime novelist and uses some crime tropes here - there is the mystery of who killed Rita to drive the story - but it's not about crime and it's not easily wrapped up. 

Pineiro uses this setup to explore women's lives in many different aspects. It looks at women as bodies: where is the bodily autonomy for women in a society that places so much judgement and control on women's freedom -- whether that's in the form of disability, reproductive rights, marital norms, religious control, sexual violence or just freedom of movement? This book points out so many shades of patriarchal control. It's a powerful read, with strong characters and a writing style that drew me in completely. Highly recommend reading this - maybe it isn't pleasant, but it's so meaningful. 

Things We Lost in the Fire

Things We Lost in the Fire / Mariana Enriquez
trans. from the Spanish by Megan McDowell
London: Hogarth Press, 2017, c2016.
208 p.

I finished this right at the end of August; I read it in audiobook format and had been listening while working on other things, bit by bit. I think this is a good way to listen to stories, you can let one sit before tackling the next. 

However, not being able to skim over some parts of this book like I would have if I was reading it means that there are some strong images that I wish I wasn't remembering! This is a set of stories that are really on the edge of horror. About as horrory as I get, anyhow. 

There are haunted houses, missing children (lots about missing and murdered children), mysterious figures only seen by one person, political danger, marital discord, and more. The stories themselves are haunting, some more poetic and some much more graphically grotesque -- I wasn't as fond of those ones for my own tastes. All of the stories combine some kind of innocence with the realities of adulthood, politics and history, and the ever-present threat of violence. 

There are a couple of stories that are more political, which were very interesting -- looking at the history of Argentina and its long echoes. They are also ones that are more realistic, comparatively speaking. My favourite stories were the ones with children as the characters; one in which two siblings see the disappearance of a friend in a haunted house, but nobody believes them, and one in which two adolescent girls try to wreak revenge on a hotel owner who fired one's father, but end up terrorized by ghostly apparitions of past governmental thugs. They are both finely tuned episodes in which children see things that aren't believed, and both are strong narratives. There is also a story about women rebelling against rampant domestic violence by setting themselves on fire -- very disturbing and powerful.

I've seen this book compared to Shirley Jackson, and I can see that in some of the stories. There is a lurking horror around every corner of daily life in this collection, and if you like that kind of tense, spooky reading, you may also like this collection. I found it really even -- each story stands up, and there are many elements to admire in their structure and narrative styles. I was taken by a few of the stories in particular, but I am not sure that I'll read her next one; as mentioned, horror is not really my genre, and although real horror readers would scoff at my characterization, I did find this quite disturbing in parts. An excellent written collection, though, and one that I would recommend if this is your kind of reading. 

The Wind that Lays Waste

The Wind that Lays Waste / Selva Almada
trans. from Spanish by Chris Andrews
Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2019, c2012.
124 p.

This brief novel, set in rural Argentina, reminded me of Hemingway. Short sentences, brief dialogue, rough weather, macho men and fights in the rain. Unfortunately, I don't like Hemingway. 

In this story, an itinerant preacher and his daughter are brought into contact with a mechanic and his apprentice when their car breaks down on a rural road. The mechanic, Gringo Brauer, and his young assistant Tapioca (actually his son, though the boy doesn't know it) fix the car over the length of a hot, still day, and meanwhile have to listen to Reverend Pearson proselytize and his teenage daughter Leni respond with sarcasm. 

We learn about all their backstories, and the similarities between them, especially Leni and Tapioca. And we see Reverend Pearson becoming obsessed with the "purity" of Tapioca's soul and the resultant desire to take Tapioca away with them when they finally leave. 

Gringo Brauer doesn't say much, but he's not a fan of the ravings of the Reverend. And in the end, after a fist fight in the storm that's broken over them, he doesn't protest much. 

The pathetic fallacy of the storm representing their emotional showdown is a bit over the top, for me, and there are many sections where a sermon of the Reverend's is just inserted. I listened to this one on audio, and while the narrator was very good, and especially talented at performing these sections, I wasn't impressed with them. Why exactly were they there? It didn't seem to serve much purpose other than to reveal the religious mania of the Reverend. They irritated me, and in the end the reader can't really tell what the author thinks of any of the characters or their behaviour or beliefs. 

This one wasn't for me, I guess. I appreciated the way Almada could tell a story with so many constraints -- isolated locale, four characters, restricted range of language -- but I didn't connect with it and wasn't interested in the outcome.