Synopsis
A diabolical collection of stories featuring achingly human characters whose lives intertwine with ghosts, goblins, and the macabre, by “one of Latin America’s most exciting authors” (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)
On the shores of this river, all the birds that fly, drink, perch on branches, and disturb siestas with the demonic squawking of the possessed—all those birds were once women.
Welcome to Argentina and the fascinating, frightening, fantastical imagination of Mariana Enriquez. In twelve spellbinding new stories, Enriquez writes about ordinary people, especially women, whose lives turn inside out when they encounter terror, the surreal, and the supernatural. A neighborhood nuisanced by ghosts, a family whose faces melt away, a faded hotel haunted by a girl who dissolved in the water tank on the roof, a riverbank populated by birds that used to be women—these and other tales illuminate the shadows of contemporary life, where the line between good and evil no longer exists.
Lyrical and hypnotic, heart-stopping and deeply moving, Enriquez’s stories never fail to enthrall, entertain, and leave us shaken. Translated by the award-winning Megan McDowell, A Sunny Place for Shady People showcases Enriquez’s unique blend of the literary and the horrific, and underscores why Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, calls her “the most exciting discovery I’ve made in fiction for some time.”
Review
The sincerest thanks to Random House/Hogarth for sending an ARC my way!
Be still my ever-beating, yet emotionally-damaged heart. In perhaps my favorite collection that I’ve had the joy of encountering, Mariana Enríquez gifts us twelve stories of cycles, unsolvable issues, and the pieces of humanity that haunt us the most. A Sunny Place for Shady People is a resoundingly moving collection of stories that provoke thought and feeling in abundance. There is a poetic bluntness to these stories that feel so clear, so real in your hands. You can hold them to the light, sneak a peak in the darkness, and turn them in every which way to find some undiscovered facet that rings true. This is the kind of literature you sit with for years, revisiting time and time again, haunting you in its own way, but for the better.
The story of the same name of the collection, “A Sunny Place for Shady People,” unearths feelings of unmoored wandering in the face of grief or addiction, ideas that work hand in hand. Enríquez so beautifully points out that addiction comes in many forms from a needle in the arm to the more elusive unrelenting grip of holding onto a memory, a person that’s been lost. Our world is one that is constructed upon cycles for better or for worse, our behaviors following a pattern to return to familiarity. Enríquez’s use of the Eliza Lamb case within this narrative feels so poignant, so symbolic of the truths we yearn for and the search for answers to the problems we can’t fix. It is painstakingly beautiful, hauntingly gorgeous, and stealthily devastating.
A similar thread runs through my personal favorite story of this collection, “Facsimile of Disgrace.” Enríquez pens a tale that depicts silence as a disease, the repetitive, malicious nature of familial trauma, and secrets housed in the dark. It’s a story focused on the erasing of a person’s identity as a result of shame, a type of wickedness that festers from generation to generation without respite. In many ways, the tone of this story conjured feelings similar to popular movies like It Follows or even other books such as Josh Malerman’s Incidents Around the House or Enríquez’s own, Our Share of Night. This is an exploration of the grip of the untold, the reach of a dark secret, and whether a family can survive such a thing. It is a boldly brilliant story, one that I would harken one of my favorite pieces of short fiction, well, ever.
“Metamorphosis” is another story that rings so true within my own worldview that it feels nearly uncanny. Enríquez explores the off-handed nature of medical practices regarding women, the frequent dismissal of pain, or disregard for transparency. It’s a story that, unfortunately, reads noticeably accurate amongst many women. However, Enríquez leaves us with a reclamation of the autonomy that has felt so lost. There is a sea of power behind the ability to make a choice, to make informed decisions, and to have a say. It goes without saying that all of these stories stem from a place of moving construction and expert craftmanship from Enríquez.
A Sunny Place for Shady People is a collection that lingers. Mariana Enríquez poses poetic problems to which there aren’t clear answers. Despite the vibrant colors of the cover, it is the shades of gray that make each and every one of these stories shine, from the brightest of lights to the darkest of deceits. Maybe there are sunny places for the morally ambiguous folks of the world, or maybe there is a comforting shade for those who have been blinded.
A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enríquez releases on September 17th from Hogarth.
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