Synopsis:
Something followed us home. It crawled in with our prayers, slipped into our beds, watched from mirrors, waited in water, and learned our names.
Gathering chilling work from some of today’s most acclaimed Latiné voices, this horror anthology moves through haunted households, brutal landscapes, sacred spaces turned dangerous, and bodies claimed by forces both ancient and intimate. The dead murmur behind locked doors. Bones rebuild themselves under merciless suns. Love becomes a doorway for demonic hunger. Blood, devotion, and memory intertwine as the past presses back with teeth.
Something Followed Us Home is an unnerving, visceral, and impossible-to-shake collection that proves that what is carried forward does not remain quiet, and what follows us rarely leaves without taking something in return.
Featuring stories by: Agustina Bazterrica, Isabel Cañas, Gerardo Sámano Córdova, Zoraida Córdova, Ann Dávila Cardinal, Mariana Enriquez, Carolina Flórez-Cerchiaro, Xochitl Gonzalez, Leopoldo Goût, Ananda Lima, Juan Martinez, Mónica Ojeda, Daniel José Older, Cynthia Pelayo, Lilliam Rivera, Diana Rodriguez Wallach, Alex Segura.
Review:
A gorgeous, haunting and unshakeable collection, the stories of which have accumulated and been rattling around inside my head since completion, “Something Followed Us Home,” edited by Cynthia Pelayo is a triumph: essential, magnificent dark fiction. With my favourite type of table of contents, a healthy mix of steadfast favourites, (Mariana Enriquez, Agustina Bazterrica, Isabel Cañas) and authors I’ve never read before- this anthology, printed in both English and Spanish is one I savoured, and allowed to unsettle me over the course of a sleepless week. From undead tourists to ancient myth, these 17 authors, each distinct, confront immigration, history, displacement, inheritance, desire and cold vengeance. The stories range from mournful to wickedly funny, from surreal fables to grounded in grim reality, varied but never disjointed. You can read them for yourself now- thank you kindly to Lane Heymont and The Tobias Literary Agency for my copy, my thoughts, as ever, remain my own.
I’ll talk you through my favourites, if I may, beginning with Ann Dávila Cardinal’s SPF-slathered “Her First Cruise Ship.” Cardinal is an author I’ve been aware of for some time but to my shame this was my first encounter with her work, and boy, what an introduction. We follow Ileana who has recently started work at Artisan Puerto Rico, and is about to experience her first boatful of tourists. This is Meredith Alloway’s “Forbidden Fruits,” turned “28 Days Later,” with a delightful commentary upon the all-consuming nature of the holiday industry, retail and economy. It’s vicious, sunburnt and full of swagger- an awesome time was had.
That’s followed by Gerardo Sámano Córdova’s “My Boyfriend,” which if badgered enough, I might admit was my favourite of the lot. It follows Isidro who is dating Felipe, and is, to summarise, just as hopelessly in love with the demon possessing his boyfriend as he is the host. When they visit a curandera to try and unburden him, Isi finds himself a little bereaved. This is a strange, tender, really quite dark contribution in which Córdova examines the intense love he explored in “Monstrilio,” through a monstrous, romantic lens.
Zoraida Córdova’s “The Immaculate Rebirth of Nicki Duran,” was yet another that knocked my socks off. It follows Nicki who wakes up one morning 3 months pregnant, a medical impossibility and only the beginning of a very strange day. What she soon realises is that she is not the only one trapped in this existential Jane The Virgin-esque nightmare, but that 100,000s of women, branded ‘The Immaculates,’ are in the same disturbing position. It’s a lovely meditation on reproductive rights, ownership and autonomy as well as societal and religious (largely male) fervor, in addition to gorgeously written.
“Pomelo,” by Xochitl Gonzalez, in my opinion, is not so much horror, but this shimmering, slightly unsettling piece of first class magical realism. It follows Pilar, who is born to Marlen and her father, a wealthy man who lives in a glass house. What follows is a commentary on isolation, parenthood and sacrifice, class, control, paranoia and patriarchy. “Pomelo,” offers little transparency for a story set in a glass house, it is completely strange and slippery and can’t be summarised neatly. It’s a citrus-sweet favourite though and you really must read it for yourself. Gonzalez is a new author for me and I’m excited to read more.
The last I’ll touch on is Ananda Lima’s “Specter,” which is an ambiguous and self-aware little masterpiece. It follows an unnamed grad student who is haunted by the titular specter- a faceless being that can only be fed by language. This story turns back upon its own medium, it’s all about the structure, architecture and power of words, and is a flawless example of what it’s paying homage to. It’s recursive, cerebral, utterly beautiful.
I enjoyed most of these stories. Pelayo’s own contribution “El Jíbaro de Puerto Rico,” was particularly stunning, Lilliam Rivera’s “Whispers from the Root,” another highlight, and Leopoldo Gout’s “Luz Y Fer,” a white-knuckle conspiracy jolt that I couldn’t turn the pages of quick enough blew me away too- these (shortened) shout-outs and my prolonged babbling thus far a clear indication of just how much “Something Followed Us Home,” has to offer.
Examined as a whole, this Latiné anthology is an examination of history, anxiety, memory, displacement, inherited trauma- things that, aptly, follow us home irrespective of whether or not they are invited. Persistent ghosts that slip beneath doorframes, across borders, oceans and generations. Some of these stories are absolute riots, strange and sardonic, some of them should be taught, picked apart and put together again in classrooms, but no matter how disparate, each will haunt you.
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