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The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
Following the "propulsive and mesmerizing" (
New York Times Book Review
)
Things We Lost in the Fire
comes a new collection of singularly unsettling stories, by an Argentine author who has earned comparisons to Shirley Jackson and Jorge Luis Borges.
Mariana Enriquez has been critically lauded for her unconventional and sociopolitical stories of the macabre: populated by unruly teenagers, crooked witches, homeless ghosts, and hungry women, they walk the uneasy line between urban realism and horror. The stories in her next collection are as terrifying as they are socially conscious, and press into being the unspoken -- fetish, illness, the female body, the darkness of human history -- with unsettling urgency. A woman is sexually obsessed with the human heart; a lost, rotting baby crawls out of a backyard and into a bedroom; a pair of teenage girls can't let go of their idol; an entire neighborhood is cursed to death by a question of morality they fail to answer correctly.
Written against the backdrop of contemporary Argentina, and with resounding tenderness towards those in pain, in fear, and in limbo, this new collection from one of Argentina's most exciting writers finds Enriquez at her most sophisticated, and most chilling.
Mariana Enriquez has been critically lauded for her unconventional and sociopolitical stories of the macabre: populated by unruly teenagers, crooked witches, homeless ghosts, and hungry women, they walk the uneasy line between urban realism and horror. The stories in her next collection are as terrifying as they are socially conscious, and press into being the unspoken -- fetish, illness, the female body, the darkness of human history -- with unsettling urgency. A woman is sexually obsessed with the human heart; a lost, rotting baby crawls out of a backyard and into a bedroom; a pair of teenage girls can't let go of their idol; an entire neighborhood is cursed to death by a question of morality they fail to answer correctly.
Written against the backdrop of contemporary Argentina, and with resounding tenderness towards those in pain, in fear, and in limbo, this new collection from one of Argentina's most exciting writers finds Enriquez at her most sophisticated, and most chilling.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
About the author
Mariana Enríquez
78 books7,856 followersMariana Enriquez (Buenos Aires, 1973) es una periodista y escritora argentina.
Se recibió de Licenciada en Comunicación Social en la Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Se ha desempeñado profesionalmente como periodista y columnista en medios gráficos, como el suplemento Radar del diario Página/12 (donde es sub-editora) y las revistas TXT, La mano, La mujer de mi vida y El Guardián. También participó en radio, como columnista en el programa Gente de a pie, por Radio Nacional.
Trabajó como jurado en concursos literarios y dictó talleres de escritura en la Fundación Tomás Eloy Martínez
Mariana Enriquez is a writer and editor based in Buenos Aires. She is the author of the novel Our Share of Night and has published two story collections in English, Things We Lost in the Fire and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed , which was a finalist for the International Booker Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Speculative Fiction, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Fiction.
Se recibió de Licenciada en Comunicación Social en la Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Se ha desempeñado profesionalmente como periodista y columnista en medios gráficos, como el suplemento Radar del diario Página/12 (donde es sub-editora) y las revistas TXT, La mano, La mujer de mi vida y El Guardián. También participó en radio, como columnista en el programa Gente de a pie, por Radio Nacional.
Trabajó como jurado en concursos literarios y dictó talleres de escritura en la Fundación Tomás Eloy Martínez
Mariana Enriquez is a writer and editor based in Buenos Aires. She is the author of the novel Our Share of Night and has published two story collections in English, Things We Lost in the Fire and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed , which was a finalist for the International Booker Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Speculative Fiction, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 7,855 reviews
November 28, 2023
Hace tiempo que desconfío visceralmente de los autores contemporáneos que gozan de una gran aceptación en un espectro grande de lectores. Llámenme esnob, pero la experiencia es la madre de la desconfianza y ya no estoy para desperdiciar tiempo y dinero por una remota posibilidad de encontrar alguna joyita habiendo tanta joya confirmada tras el paso del tiempo.
Dicho esto, hay veces que la presión social me puede. Este es el caso de esta autora y de este el libro. Pues bien, no es que perdiera tiempo (me lo leí en nada) ni dinero (lo compré de segunda mano muy barato), pero tampoco me habría perdido ninguna joya.
La experiencia ha sido como si, tras numerosos estudios geológicos favorables, decidiera por fin excavar una mina con la que siempre me había mostrado reticente. Cada una de las exploraciones a sus galerías llamaban a la esperanza para terminar pocos metros después de forma frustrante: la mayoría de las extracciones resultó ser ganga y no pude encontrar la mena que hiciera rentable la empresa, si bien hallé alguna veta prometedora (El algibe, Dónde estás corazón —sin duda, el mejor de todos— y Carne)… nada más.
A un cuento no debe faltarle ni sobrarle nada, debe ser redondo, como un globo perfecto. Mi impresión es que Enriquez infla el globo con un gas potente que inmediatamente inicia un prometedor ascenso que augura un vuelo audaz y vistoso (El carrito, Rambla triste, El mirador, Chicos que vuelven) que al final no se produce: el globo sufre un pinchazo abrupto y cae hecho un guiñapo.
A pesar de todo, algo he encontrado en estos relatos que me inclina a no descartar del todo a la autora (me gusta como escribe, sus diálogos, la sencillez con la que va hilando historias que no son nada sencillas, sus propuestas, aunque después no cierren bien), y como ya tengo en casa “Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego” (también de segunda mano y muy barato) creo que haré una segunda prospección. Ya les contaré.
January 12, 2021
(4.5) The first Mariana Enríquez collection to be translated into English, Things We Lost in the Fire, is one of those books that left a real mark on me. I’m always looking for subtle, weird, dark, allegorical horror stories to match up to Enríquez’s best. So you can imagine how delighted I was to discover another of her collections is being translated. I had to read it as soon as possible.
While The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is new in translation, it’s actually an earlier collection than Things We Lost in the Fire, first published in Spanish in 2009. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that it has less of a connecting theme than the later book. It does, however, have a potent, oppressive mood. This is a book queasily obsessed with death and sex and ghosts, both morbid and lustful. The dead are always crawling up from beneath the dirty streets, refusing to stay buried. Pleasure is achieved by way of self-harm or a sadistic fetish. Enríquez’s fiction may be unwholesome, but it is startlingly effective.
By far my favourite from this collection was the longest story, ‘Kids Who Come Back’, which has so much detail and development it almost qualifies as a novella in its own right. I also loved ‘Meat’, ‘Rambla Triste’, ‘Our Lady of the Quarry’ and ‘No Birthdays or Baptisms’.
---
‘Angelita Unearthed’: The protagonist is persistently haunted by the ghost of a baby – her would-have-been great-aunt, Angelita. But the tone is more pitch-black buddy comedy than creepy ghost story. It’s short, weird, and darkly funny.
Clearly, carrying a dead baby around everywhere I went had affected my mind.
‘Our Lady of the Quarry’: A chorus of girls look on jealously as their most ‘grown-up’ (but, in their opinion, least attractive) friend starts a relationship with their collective crush. I wasn’t sold on this narrative device when it popped up in Things We Lost (in the story ‘The Intoxicated Years’), but here it works perfectly, pulling the reader into the girls’ petty resentments and dreams of revenge.
A week after Diego drank Natalia’s blood, Silvia herself told us they were dating, it was official.
‘The Cart’: Shortly after chasing away an elderly alcoholic with a cart of junk, the residents of a working-class community suffer a spate of bad luck, and come to believe they have been cursed. This story doesn’t seem to fit with the others, but I can’t really pinpoint why. It’s typically dark but doesn’t bear any of the author’s hallmarks.
We were scared, but fear doesn’t look the same as desperation.
‘The Well’: As a child, Josefina accompanies her mother and sister on a visit to a reputed witch. Afterwards, she becomes afflicted with fear, and is so terrified of everything that she struggles to live a normal life. The tragedy of Josefina’s existence – and the cause of this misery – is powerfully depicted.
She never slept with a leg uncovered, because she just knew she would feel a cold hand touching it.
‘Rambla Triste’: If this wasn’t specifically about Barcelona, it would fit perfectly alongside the stories in Sam Thompson’s Communion Town. Alongside the narrator – an Argentinian woman visiting friends – we experience the city as a labyrinthine place with multiple personalities, teeming with strange figures who could be prophets, gods, or nobodies. ‘Rambla Triste’ is rich and intoxicating. I was transfixed by the plot (it tightens its grip on you steadily as it progresses) and loved the ending.
‘Sometimes I think the crazies aren’t people, they’re not real. They’re incarnations of the city’s madness, like escape valves.’
‘The Lookout Tower’: This is another taste of something different, and like ‘The Cart’ it gives me the feeling that, circa this book, Enríquez was experimenting with her style. In a seafront hotel, a ghost searches for a willing host, and finds her perfect match in a woman who is planning her suicide. Despite this premise, it is rather romantic in its own deeply melancholic way.
How lovely to die like that, suddenly and without planning, in such a simple way.
‘Where Are You, Dear Heart?’: The narrator realises while still a child that she has a predilection for sickly people. As an adult, this morphs into a full-blown fetish, and an irregular heartbeat is the only thing that can excite her sexually. Enríquez has a real knack for making the reader squirm, and it’s on full display here; some passages made me so squeamish I had to skip over them. The last line is chilling as hell.
We both knew how it could end, and we didn’t care.
‘Meat’: This reminded me a little of Julia Armfield’s ‘Stop your women’s ears with wax’ – with an even more macabre twist. Julieta and Mariela are devoted followers of a rock star, Santiago Espina, especially his controversial second album Meat. And they take their fandom to alarming extremes. The details make this somehow horribly plausible.
They looked into the cameras with smiles that were later described as ‘terrifying’ and ‘cryptic’.
‘No Birthdays or Baptisms’: The narrator is friends with a guy called Nico who places a newspaper ad volunteering himself for ‘weird film projects’. Inevitably he ends up shooting a lot of homemade porn, but then a really strange request comes: a woman wants Nico to film her mentally ill daughter, Marcela, in the midst of a breakdown. Theoretically, this will prove to Marcela that her hallucinations are just that.
If I hadn’t reread Things We Lost in the Fire right before starting this book, I probably wouldn’t have realised that Marcela is also the protagonist of ‘End of Term’, which depicts her at an earlier point in her life, while she is still attending school. ‘No Birthdays or Baptisms’ fleshes out her story in intriguing, sometimes distressing style. It is also thrillingly ambiguous.
Since I lived alone, there was no one around to point out my depression or try to cheer me up. I hadn’t had such a good time in years.
‘Kids Who Come Back’: Mechi’s job is ‘to maintain and update the archive of lost and disappeared children in the city of Buenos Aires’ – a never-ending, unrewarding, and often harrowing task. She becomes a little obsessed with one girl, Vanadis; she is dismayed when a video obtained by her journalist friend Pedro proves Vanadis is dead. Yet days later, Mechi sees Vanadis alive. It seems like an impossibility, but in fact it is just the start of a bizarre phenomenon.
‘Kids Who Come Back’ is by far the longest story in The Dangers of Smoking in Bed; it accounts for more than a quarter of the book. It’s brilliant, and made me madly curious about Enríquez’s novels (like I wasn't already). It encompasses a lot of the themes and motifs found throughout Enríquez’s work: lost or neglected children, abuse, poverty, Argentinian history, and supernatural horror. The detailed and realistic build-up makes the horror all the more striking when it finally arrives.
It was the first time Graciela had seen a moribund person walking, a person whose mind didn't register the death of the body.
‘The Dangers of Smoking in Bed’: In complete contrast to the story that precedes it, this is a short scene, just a few pages. The title tells you what it’s about. The specifics are typically grotesque.
In her apartment, she was the only one who lived.
‘Back When We Talked to the Dead’: Like ‘Our Lady of the Quarry’, this is narrated by a group of girls. Like many of the stories in Things We Lost, it ties the experience of its characters to the history of their country. The friends use a Ouija board in an attempt to contact their dead relatives, and (as fictional characters who use Ouija boards always do) they get rather more than they bargained for. Brief but effective; a perfect closing story.
Julita’s folks had disappeared. They were disappeared. They’d been disappeared. We didn’t really know the right way to say it.
I received an advance review copy of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed from the publisher through Edelweiss.
TinyLetter | Linktree
While The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is new in translation, it’s actually an earlier collection than Things We Lost in the Fire, first published in Spanish in 2009. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that it has less of a connecting theme than the later book. It does, however, have a potent, oppressive mood. This is a book queasily obsessed with death and sex and ghosts, both morbid and lustful. The dead are always crawling up from beneath the dirty streets, refusing to stay buried. Pleasure is achieved by way of self-harm or a sadistic fetish. Enríquez’s fiction may be unwholesome, but it is startlingly effective.
By far my favourite from this collection was the longest story, ‘Kids Who Come Back’, which has so much detail and development it almost qualifies as a novella in its own right. I also loved ‘Meat’, ‘Rambla Triste’, ‘Our Lady of the Quarry’ and ‘No Birthdays or Baptisms’.
---
‘Angelita Unearthed’: The protagonist is persistently haunted by the ghost of a baby – her would-have-been great-aunt, Angelita. But the tone is more pitch-black buddy comedy than creepy ghost story. It’s short, weird, and darkly funny.
Clearly, carrying a dead baby around everywhere I went had affected my mind.
‘Our Lady of the Quarry’: A chorus of girls look on jealously as their most ‘grown-up’ (but, in their opinion, least attractive) friend starts a relationship with their collective crush. I wasn’t sold on this narrative device when it popped up in Things We Lost (in the story ‘The Intoxicated Years’), but here it works perfectly, pulling the reader into the girls’ petty resentments and dreams of revenge.
A week after Diego drank Natalia’s blood, Silvia herself told us they were dating, it was official.
‘The Cart’: Shortly after chasing away an elderly alcoholic with a cart of junk, the residents of a working-class community suffer a spate of bad luck, and come to believe they have been cursed. This story doesn’t seem to fit with the others, but I can’t really pinpoint why. It’s typically dark but doesn’t bear any of the author’s hallmarks.
We were scared, but fear doesn’t look the same as desperation.
‘The Well’: As a child, Josefina accompanies her mother and sister on a visit to a reputed witch. Afterwards, she becomes afflicted with fear, and is so terrified of everything that she struggles to live a normal life. The tragedy of Josefina’s existence – and the cause of this misery – is powerfully depicted.
She never slept with a leg uncovered, because she just knew she would feel a cold hand touching it.
‘Rambla Triste’: If this wasn’t specifically about Barcelona, it would fit perfectly alongside the stories in Sam Thompson’s Communion Town. Alongside the narrator – an Argentinian woman visiting friends – we experience the city as a labyrinthine place with multiple personalities, teeming with strange figures who could be prophets, gods, or nobodies. ‘Rambla Triste’ is rich and intoxicating. I was transfixed by the plot (it tightens its grip on you steadily as it progresses) and loved the ending.
‘Sometimes I think the crazies aren’t people, they’re not real. They’re incarnations of the city’s madness, like escape valves.’
‘The Lookout Tower’: This is another taste of something different, and like ‘The Cart’ it gives me the feeling that, circa this book, Enríquez was experimenting with her style. In a seafront hotel, a ghost searches for a willing host, and finds her perfect match in a woman who is planning her suicide. Despite this premise, it is rather romantic in its own deeply melancholic way.
How lovely to die like that, suddenly and without planning, in such a simple way.
‘Where Are You, Dear Heart?’: The narrator realises while still a child that she has a predilection for sickly people. As an adult, this morphs into a full-blown fetish, and an irregular heartbeat is the only thing that can excite her sexually. Enríquez has a real knack for making the reader squirm, and it’s on full display here; some passages made me so squeamish I had to skip over them. The last line is chilling as hell.
We both knew how it could end, and we didn’t care.
‘Meat’: This reminded me a little of Julia Armfield’s ‘Stop your women’s ears with wax’ – with an even more macabre twist. Julieta and Mariela are devoted followers of a rock star, Santiago Espina, especially his controversial second album Meat. And they take their fandom to alarming extremes. The details make this somehow horribly plausible.
They looked into the cameras with smiles that were later described as ‘terrifying’ and ‘cryptic’.
‘No Birthdays or Baptisms’: The narrator is friends with a guy called Nico who places a newspaper ad volunteering himself for ‘weird film projects’. Inevitably he ends up shooting a lot of homemade porn, but then a really strange request comes: a woman wants Nico to film her mentally ill daughter, Marcela, in the midst of a breakdown. Theoretically, this will prove to Marcela that her hallucinations are just that.
If I hadn’t reread Things We Lost in the Fire right before starting this book, I probably wouldn’t have realised that Marcela is also the protagonist of ‘End of Term’, which depicts her at an earlier point in her life, while she is still attending school. ‘No Birthdays or Baptisms’ fleshes out her story in intriguing, sometimes distressing style. It is also thrillingly ambiguous.
Since I lived alone, there was no one around to point out my depression or try to cheer me up. I hadn’t had such a good time in years.
‘Kids Who Come Back’: Mechi’s job is ‘to maintain and update the archive of lost and disappeared children in the city of Buenos Aires’ – a never-ending, unrewarding, and often harrowing task. She becomes a little obsessed with one girl, Vanadis; she is dismayed when a video obtained by her journalist friend Pedro proves Vanadis is dead. Yet days later, Mechi sees Vanadis alive. It seems like an impossibility, but in fact it is just the start of a bizarre phenomenon.
‘Kids Who Come Back’ is by far the longest story in The Dangers of Smoking in Bed; it accounts for more than a quarter of the book. It’s brilliant, and made me madly curious about Enríquez’s novels (like I wasn't already). It encompasses a lot of the themes and motifs found throughout Enríquez’s work: lost or neglected children, abuse, poverty, Argentinian history, and supernatural horror. The detailed and realistic build-up makes the horror all the more striking when it finally arrives.
It was the first time Graciela had seen a moribund person walking, a person whose mind didn't register the death of the body.
‘The Dangers of Smoking in Bed’: In complete contrast to the story that precedes it, this is a short scene, just a few pages. The title tells you what it’s about. The specifics are typically grotesque.
In her apartment, she was the only one who lived.
‘Back When We Talked to the Dead’: Like ‘Our Lady of the Quarry’, this is narrated by a group of girls. Like many of the stories in Things We Lost, it ties the experience of its characters to the history of their country. The friends use a Ouija board in an attempt to contact their dead relatives, and (as fictional characters who use Ouija boards always do) they get rather more than they bargained for. Brief but effective; a perfect closing story.
Julita’s folks had disappeared. They were disappeared. They’d been disappeared. We didn’t really know the right way to say it.
I received an advance review copy of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed from the publisher through Edelweiss.
TinyLetter | Linktree
January 8, 2018
Nota real: 4.5 estrellas
Mi cuarto libro de Mariana Enríquez fue esta antología que finalmente podemos conseguir con facilidad en México gracias a editorial Anagrama. No es un secreto para quienes me conocen que -desde el primer libro que leí de esta autora- se ha convertido en una de mis favoritas. Tampoco es un secreto que su estilo no es para todo mundo.
Lo que más me gusta de los cuentos de Mariana es el contexto urbano en el que se desarrolla mucho de su terror. Siendo alguien que vive en la Ciudad de México, me resulta curioso cómo veo reflejados muchos miedos que me genera esta ciudad, con lo que la autora imagina en escenarios argentinos.
Las desapariciones forzadas, las personas en situación de calle, los menores que desaparecen cada día como si hubieran sido devorados por la gran ciudad, son motivos que de algún modo hacen eco de lo que vemos en las noticias o en nuestros recorridos diarios. Y la autora logra darles todavía un giro más siniestro a estas situaciones ya de por sí terribles.
Me pareció que los cuentos en este volumen van de más a menos. Empiezan súper fuerte con "El desentierro de la Angelita" en donde nos encontramos con el cadáver/fantasma putrefacto de una niña, pasando por la santería-brujería de "La Virgen de la tosquera" y "El Aljibe", hasta llegar a "Rambla Triste", en donde Mariana nos pregunta: ¿qué tal si todos esos locos que vemos día a día caminar por las calles son fantasmas producidos por nuestra propia ciudad? Y de ahí empieza a bajar un poco la intensidad.
En general todos los relatos me gustaron, curiosamente, el que le da título a la antología, fue quizá mi menos favorito. Lo que más aplaudo de Enríquez es su originalidad, que no repite fórmulas ya probadas con el horror, sino que inventa sus propios monstruos y los dirige por rumbos insospechados. Como dije, sé que no es una autora para todos los gustos, pero a mí, me encanta.
Mi cuarto libro de Mariana Enríquez fue esta antología que finalmente podemos conseguir con facilidad en México gracias a editorial Anagrama. No es un secreto para quienes me conocen que -desde el primer libro que leí de esta autora- se ha convertido en una de mis favoritas. Tampoco es un secreto que su estilo no es para todo mundo.
Lo que más me gusta de los cuentos de Mariana es el contexto urbano en el que se desarrolla mucho de su terror. Siendo alguien que vive en la Ciudad de México, me resulta curioso cómo veo reflejados muchos miedos que me genera esta ciudad, con lo que la autora imagina en escenarios argentinos.
Las desapariciones forzadas, las personas en situación de calle, los menores que desaparecen cada día como si hubieran sido devorados por la gran ciudad, son motivos que de algún modo hacen eco de lo que vemos en las noticias o en nuestros recorridos diarios. Y la autora logra darles todavía un giro más siniestro a estas situaciones ya de por sí terribles.
Me pareció que los cuentos en este volumen van de más a menos. Empiezan súper fuerte con "El desentierro de la Angelita" en donde nos encontramos con el cadáver/fantasma putrefacto de una niña, pasando por la santería-brujería de "La Virgen de la tosquera" y "El Aljibe", hasta llegar a "Rambla Triste", en donde Mariana nos pregunta: ¿qué tal si todos esos locos que vemos día a día caminar por las calles son fantasmas producidos por nuestra propia ciudad? Y de ahí empieza a bajar un poco la intensidad.
En general todos los relatos me gustaron, curiosamente, el que le da título a la antología, fue quizá mi menos favorito. Lo que más aplaudo de Enríquez es su originalidad, que no repite fórmulas ya probadas con el horror, sino que inventa sus propios monstruos y los dirige por rumbos insospechados. Como dije, sé que no es una autora para todos los gustos, pero a mí, me encanta.
June 23, 2021
I am deeply upset over the turn this novel took.
I will begin by saying this was a highly anticipated read for me, one that has received hype from reviewers I trust with my entire heart. Unfortunately, I was violently reminded, once again, not to trust cisgender reviewers with my safety. This may seem harsh, but continue reading and it was ideally make sense.
I was LOVING this book. It is haunting, spooky, realism and magical realistic horror pulled together by writing that clung to the insides of my scalp. There was so much about this book I loved thematically and could rave about.
Toward the very end of the novel, the "T word" slur was used ... a lot. The first time it happened, I felt my stomach drop. The second time I thought, "okay, at least it's over." After the fifth+ time, I was nauseated simply because I had been so wholly unprepared for its use. None of the cis reviewers I trusted mentioned its use and the other stories were not transphobic in the slightest. In fact, they explored complex social themes with a refreshing sense of relentlessness that made me feel safe reading this book as a Latinx trans reader. Many cis and Latinx folk will say "well it was a story about life on the street" to justice the violent use of transphobic slurs which is *say it with me* - transphobic.
I am rarely actually triggered by works simply because I go into them with my guard up. That was not the case with this book. I wanted to be sure to warn those of you who may also be harmed and humiliated by the author's choice of language. Reading that story filled me with a deep sense of shame, shame that was not mine to carry.
Cis (non transgender) reviewers: Imma need you to MENTION that this book has use of the T word in your reviews. You don't have to go into a lengthy explanation, you could honestly just say "hey i liked this book but content warning for multiple use of transphobic slurs".
*note.* I did look into the author to see if she was out as trans and did not see anything. I do NOT believe in forcing authors to come out before allowing them to write about transness, but still wanted to see if she had spoken about being part of the trans community. Ultimately, I decided even if she is trans, this book is still harmful to trans reviewers because A) it harmed me, a trans reviewer and B) the only time transness is even mentioned in the novel takes the form of slurs? Not here for it. That is harmful representation regardless.
I will begin by saying this was a highly anticipated read for me, one that has received hype from reviewers I trust with my entire heart. Unfortunately, I was violently reminded, once again, not to trust cisgender reviewers with my safety. This may seem harsh, but continue reading and it was ideally make sense.
I was LOVING this book. It is haunting, spooky, realism and magical realistic horror pulled together by writing that clung to the insides of my scalp. There was so much about this book I loved thematically and could rave about.
Toward the very end of the novel, the "T word" slur was used ... a lot. The first time it happened, I felt my stomach drop. The second time I thought, "okay, at least it's over." After the fifth+ time, I was nauseated simply because I had been so wholly unprepared for its use. None of the cis reviewers I trusted mentioned its use and the other stories were not transphobic in the slightest. In fact, they explored complex social themes with a refreshing sense of relentlessness that made me feel safe reading this book as a Latinx trans reader. Many cis and Latinx folk will say "well it was a story about life on the street" to justice the violent use of transphobic slurs which is *say it with me* - transphobic.
I am rarely actually triggered by works simply because I go into them with my guard up. That was not the case with this book. I wanted to be sure to warn those of you who may also be harmed and humiliated by the author's choice of language. Reading that story filled me with a deep sense of shame, shame that was not mine to carry.
Cis (non transgender) reviewers: Imma need you to MENTION that this book has use of the T word in your reviews. You don't have to go into a lengthy explanation, you could honestly just say "hey i liked this book but content warning for multiple use of transphobic slurs".
*note.* I did look into the author to see if she was out as trans and did not see anything. I do NOT believe in forcing authors to come out before allowing them to write about transness, but still wanted to see if she had spoken about being part of the trans community. Ultimately, I decided even if she is trans, this book is still harmful to trans reviewers because A) it harmed me, a trans reviewer and B) the only time transness is even mentioned in the novel takes the form of slurs? Not here for it. That is harmful representation regardless.
November 8, 2022
do you ever see a book and just assume against the odds you're going to love it?
yeah.
i didn't love this book but i did have that instinct and that counts for something. in fact it counts for so much that i'm convinced my "this was pretty good" response was a fluke, and i should just go ahead and reread it.
is that normal?
i guess more of a review to come when i reread for almost no reason.
yeah.
i didn't love this book but i did have that instinct and that counts for something. in fact it counts for so much that i'm convinced my "this was pretty good" response was a fluke, and i should just go ahead and reread it.
is that normal?
i guess more of a review to come when i reread for almost no reason.
November 29, 2021
2.5 stars*
Read
August 19, 2022He leído mal a Mariana Enríquez. Tenía que haber empezado con este libro de relatos y haber ido avanzando hacia adelante en su bibliografía. Así habría ido observando cómo su técnica narrativa, su voz, sus imágenes… se iban puliendo y afilando hasta, finalmente, alumbrar esa oscura obra maestra que es «Nuestra parte de noche». Pero lo he hecho en el sentido contrario (y erróneo). Empecé por su gran novela, esa que me dejó sin aire en los pulmones, y después fui avanzando hacia atrás con sus libros más importantes.
«Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego» me encantó, por supuesto. Aquellos doce cuentos eran el germen de los monstruos que después crecerían (alados, dentados, mugrientos) en su posterior novela… y, no solo eso, aprecié aquellos relatos como tales por su sagacidad, frescura y exactitud milimétrica.
Pero, al seguir avanzando y llegar a esta obra de 2009, ya no he encontrado tantas cosas que me sorprendan y me he enfrentado a unos relatos algo más toscos y menos redondos. Por supuesto que el genio ya estaba ahí, que los personajes son multiprimáticos y los ambientes están descritos a la perfección y la escritura te lleva a mundos muy distintos entre sí… pero no de una manera tan perfecta, en mi opinión, como sus otros dos libros.
Esto no es una crítica hacia ella: al contrario, es un elogio. Es una forma de reconocer que cada vez fue más buena hasta que acabó siendo espectacular, la mejor en lo suyo.
«Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego» me encantó, por supuesto. Aquellos doce cuentos eran el germen de los monstruos que después crecerían (alados, dentados, mugrientos) en su posterior novela… y, no solo eso, aprecié aquellos relatos como tales por su sagacidad, frescura y exactitud milimétrica.
Pero, al seguir avanzando y llegar a esta obra de 2009, ya no he encontrado tantas cosas que me sorprendan y me he enfrentado a unos relatos algo más toscos y menos redondos. Por supuesto que el genio ya estaba ahí, que los personajes son multiprimáticos y los ambientes están descritos a la perfección y la escritura te lleva a mundos muy distintos entre sí… pero no de una manera tan perfecta, en mi opinión, como sus otros dos libros.
Esto no es una crítica hacia ella: al contrario, es un elogio. Es una forma de reconocer que cada vez fue más buena hasta que acabó siendo espectacular, la mejor en lo suyo.
May 11, 2022
"Coca ate her cat, and then she killed herself."
"The sheets were impregnated with the smell of chicken cutlets."
"The girls had opened the casket to feed on Espina's remains with devotion and disgust; around the grave, pools of vomit bore witness to their efforts."
I love these sentences. There are so many more I could have chosen as examples of Mariana Enriquez's unique storytelling style, which (in English translation, at least) is straight-forward, literally gutsy, and completely bare of ornamentation. Also, somehow, there is a nearly jolly tone in the storytelling, a casual fatalism in the way each of these horror stories spools out, where no matter how horrific the story becomes along the way to its end, what's happening on the page still seems perfectly normal, somehow.
It's a perfect style to continuously disarm me. There is such a fearlessness here, in imagery and message. I'm a little grossed out by these stories, but also, I'm dazzled.
The stories here in this newly published collection are less layered, and more direct, than those in Enriquez's previously published collection in English, "Things We Lost in the Fire." The stories here go straight for the jugular, with very little meander along the way. I didn't love all of them, but I loved the audacity of all of them.
"The sheets were impregnated with the smell of chicken cutlets."
"The girls had opened the casket to feed on Espina's remains with devotion and disgust; around the grave, pools of vomit bore witness to their efforts."
I love these sentences. There are so many more I could have chosen as examples of Mariana Enriquez's unique storytelling style, which (in English translation, at least) is straight-forward, literally gutsy, and completely bare of ornamentation. Also, somehow, there is a nearly jolly tone in the storytelling, a casual fatalism in the way each of these horror stories spools out, where no matter how horrific the story becomes along the way to its end, what's happening on the page still seems perfectly normal, somehow.
It's a perfect style to continuously disarm me. There is such a fearlessness here, in imagery and message. I'm a little grossed out by these stories, but also, I'm dazzled.
The stories here in this newly published collection are less layered, and more direct, than those in Enriquez's previously published collection in English, "Things We Lost in the Fire." The stories here go straight for the jugular, with very little meander along the way. I didn't love all of them, but I loved the audacity of all of them.
December 15, 2020
3.5 estrellas en realidad. Lo redondeamos a 4 por su originalidad.
Muy buena colección de cuentos de horror, muy perturbadores algunos, narrados con un estilo muy único, donde volvemos a caer en la cuenta de que los peores monstruos son los seres humanos.
Mis favoritos : El aljibe (ese nunca lo voy a olvidar 😫), El carrito, Rambla triste, la virgen de la tosquera, Chicos que faltan.
Muy buena colección de cuentos de horror, muy perturbadores algunos, narrados con un estilo muy único, donde volvemos a caer en la cuenta de que los peores monstruos son los seres humanos.
Mis favoritos : El aljibe (ese nunca lo voy a olvidar 😫), El carrito, Rambla triste, la virgen de la tosquera, Chicos que faltan.
January 5, 2023
Estoy orgullosa de mí por aguantarme el miedo y por fin aventarme a leer cuentos de Enriquez. Vale la pena (aunque me niegue a leerlos de noche).
April 24, 2021
Think about the most horrible things that can happen in life. Now, imagine that there’s no line between reality and your worst nightmares and what it would be like to only be able to see the world through the lens of superstition; to see the whole world as an evil omen of death.
I can easily say this is the best short story collection I’ve ever read and that’s as much as I’m going to say about it, I’m afraid, because this is not the sort of book I would lightly recommend even to my best friend.
The following Monday his ad started to run in the newspaper. It said: “Nicolás. Weird films projects. I don’t do birthdays, baptisms, or family parties. Ideal for voyeurs. I don’t do anything ilegal or work for cuckolds. Call . . .” I told him it wasn’t likely anyone would call, or would even understand what he was trying to say with the ad. He replied that weird or disturbed people would understand. He was sure. And he was right.
I can easily say this is the best short story collection I’ve ever read and that’s as much as I’m going to say about it, I’m afraid, because this is not the sort of book I would lightly recommend even to my best friend.
The following Monday his ad started to run in the newspaper. It said: “Nicolás. Weird films projects. I don’t do birthdays, baptisms, or family parties. Ideal for voyeurs. I don’t do anything ilegal or work for cuckolds. Call . . .” I told him it wasn’t likely anyone would call, or would even understand what he was trying to say with the ad. He replied that weird or disturbed people would understand. He was sure. And he was right.
September 25, 2022
This is a bit of a difficult one to rate, really. While I enjoyed the writing style, I thought the stories, apart from a couple, were rather mediocre. This wasn't horror to me, and there was hardly anything new here to get my teeth into.
I will begin by stating the story that did capture my interest, was called 'Where are you, dear heart?' and it involved a female with a rather intense fetish with irregular heart rhythms, and she regularly put headphones in, listening to different heart rhythms, and then often masturbated until she bled. I'll admit, I was interested but certainly I wasn't expecting it. I'll never be able to listen to my ectopic beats on a monitor the same again, I'm afraid.
The other stories used gore and disgust to obtain the horror element, so basically that meant a whole lot of mentions of vomit and faeces, which in overuse, actually doesn't add a single thing to one's stories.
I think the other issue is that the stories were not concluded. They all ended on some odd cliffhanger, which was quite frustrating when I was expecting a couple of notable climaxes, you know, in an attempt to save this collection.
This collection wasn't really satisfactory, but I'm glad I've delved a little into this authors work.
I will begin by stating the story that did capture my interest, was called 'Where are you, dear heart?' and it involved a female with a rather intense fetish with irregular heart rhythms, and she regularly put headphones in, listening to different heart rhythms, and then often masturbated until she bled. I'll admit, I was interested but certainly I wasn't expecting it. I'll never be able to listen to my ectopic beats on a monitor the same again, I'm afraid.
The other stories used gore and disgust to obtain the horror element, so basically that meant a whole lot of mentions of vomit and faeces, which in overuse, actually doesn't add a single thing to one's stories.
I think the other issue is that the stories were not concluded. They all ended on some odd cliffhanger, which was quite frustrating when I was expecting a couple of notable climaxes, you know, in an attempt to save this collection.
This collection wasn't really satisfactory, but I'm glad I've delved a little into this authors work.
September 5, 2022
dnf@story 4
Story 1 Angelita Unearthed : 2.5 stars
I didn't understand the point of the story; it was disturbing and unpleasant at points, but what was the point or background, as we call it??
Story 2 Our lady of the quary : 1.75 stars
It was much more tedious and uninteresting than the previous. Jealousy among teenagers leads to the summoning of spirits to kill the people they are jealous of. Very cliched and unoriginal.
Story 3 The cart : 2.25 stars
Again, a mediocre storey emphasising the value of treating others who are less fortunate than you with care.
Story 4 The well : 3.5 stars
This one is the best so far, especially the beautifully dramatic ending, which is stunning.
Over the course of a week, I read four stories, all of which were mediocre to below average. This compilation, which is marketed as horror, did not appeal to me. I didn't find it horrifying or mysterious in any way; in fact, for the most part, it was fairly bland.
Story 1 Angelita Unearthed : 2.5 stars
I didn't understand the point of the story; it was disturbing and unpleasant at points, but what was the point or background, as we call it??
Story 2 Our lady of the quary : 1.75 stars
It was much more tedious and uninteresting than the previous. Jealousy among teenagers leads to the summoning of spirits to kill the people they are jealous of. Very cliched and unoriginal.
Story 3 The cart : 2.25 stars
Again, a mediocre storey emphasising the value of treating others who are less fortunate than you with care.
Story 4 The well : 3.5 stars
This one is the best so far, especially the beautifully dramatic ending, which is stunning.
Over the course of a week, I read four stories, all of which were mediocre to below average. This compilation, which is marketed as horror, did not appeal to me. I didn't find it horrifying or mysterious in any way; in fact, for the most part, it was fairly bland.
July 9, 2022
Bueno como siempre me pasa al ser relatos ha habido de todo, estas fueron mis puntuciones:
- El desentierro de la angelita 6/10.
- La Virgen de la tosquera 7/10.
- El carrito 5/10.
- El aljibe 2/10.
- Rambla triste 5/10.
- El mirador 5/10.
- Donde estas corazón 4/10.
- Carne 8/10.
- Ni cumpleaños ni bautismos 5/10.
- Chicos que faltan 8/10.
- Los peligros de fumar en la cama 3/10.
- Cuando hablábamos con los muertos 6/10.
Nota media: 5/10.
No sido el mejor libro que he leído de esta autora.
- El desentierro de la angelita 6/10.
- La Virgen de la tosquera 7/10.
- El carrito 5/10.
- El aljibe 2/10.
- Rambla triste 5/10.
- El mirador 5/10.
- Donde estas corazón 4/10.
- Carne 8/10.
- Ni cumpleaños ni bautismos 5/10.
- Chicos que faltan 8/10.
- Los peligros de fumar en la cama 3/10.
- Cuando hablábamos con los muertos 6/10.
Nota media: 5/10.
No sido el mejor libro que he leído de esta autora.
March 26, 2021
Debo admitir que esta relectura me hizo apreciar mil veces más esta antología. Muchísimas cosas se me habían pasado por alto al principio, ahora le dí una mirada más profunda, leí más material para complementar, y tuvo otro sabor. Definitivamente merece 5 estrellas.
May 23, 2018
Impecable, te deja temblando. Son doce cuentos que demuestran claramente que no se trata de una autora "de terror" al uso, otra copia de Stephen King. En ellos hay un deliberado intento por conjurar el pasado de su comunidad, tan lleno de horror, muertos, desaparecidos y fantasmas, un pasado sin duelo posible tal como están planteadas las cosas. Los caminos que elige, como en los cuentos "El desentierro de la angelita" o "Los chicos que faltan", esquivan el campo minado de la instrumentalización política, y apuntan a lo íntimo, a la necesidad de conjurar el dolor para seguir adelante. Quien lea estos cuentos en clave estrictamente literaria se pierde la mitad del premio.
May 2, 2021
It's weird to see a dead person during the day
As this is my first Enriquez, I had high expectations - which, sadly, were not met. The writing is fluent but the stories, with a single exception, are too short to really get under the skin of what they're saying. In some cases, there is a match between the tale and the brevity where it says everything it needs to, but in other cases I felt a bit short-changed.
There are some good, i.e. nasty, ideas at play here (the heartbeat fetishist; fandom that turns, logically, to anthropophagy) but I found these stories overall strangely lacking in tension and/or atmosphere, and there just isn't the visceral fear that the best horror/ghost stories evoke (for me, there's nothing more chilling than the ambiguous hauntings and creeping dread of The Turn of the Screw).
I do like the way Enriquez uses supernatural tropes to express the politicised climate of her places where abused children or the missing are shown to literally haunt the streets and the imaginations of her citizens. But overall this felt samey and just not as edgy I had expected.
April 9, 2017
Ay! Pensé que me gustaría más este libro. Igual intentaré con su otro libro de cuentos, no me entusiasmó como pensé. Es medio terror, bien escrito, pero en el fondo todo me parecía medio efectista.
January 13, 2022
Los peligros de fumar en la cama es otra recopilación de cuentos, más raros que terroríficos, de Mariana Enriquez.
Sí, a mí también me ha disgustado haberle dado una estrellita. De hecho había considerado dejarlo sin valoración porque no estoy muy segura de si el problema fue el momento o el libro, pero luego de pensarlo durante unos minutos me di cuenta de que así es como me siento ahora y ponerle otra valoración sería mentirme.
A lo largo de estos cuentos volví a encontrar el estilo característico de Enriquez, una autora que logra hacer que lo cotidiano sea perturbador y los lugares cobren vida. Sin embargo, aquí no logré conectar con ninguna de las historias, era empezar a leer y pasar horas releyendo la misma página sin lograr que las palabras se convirtieran en imágenes o que las desgracias de los personajes me provocaran empatía. Me forcé tanto a seguir leyendo que me provoqué un bloqueo lector —es por eso que he estado sacando y poniendo libros de la estantería "leyendo"—, y el resultado siempre era el mismo. Me daba igual lo que pasara en cada historia. Si salvo alguna, quizá, es Carne, un relato sobre el fanatismo.
Todos los cuentos giran al rededor de lo cotidiano, cosas que son perfectamente posibles y un ligero toque sobrenatural que a veces pasa desapercibido. Si bien tocan una historia diferente, todos tienen algo en común: el protagonismo siempre cae sobre los personajes femeninos aún cuando el narrador es un hombre. Y es refrescante leer personajes femeninos de moral cuestionable, Enriquez no convierte a sus protagonistas en víctimas, ni en heroínas o santas, sino en personas que pueden ser tan malas como buenas, perversas, incluso. Personalmente, he leído muy pocos libros donde ocurra eso.
Mi estrella solitaria no significa que vaya a dejar de leer a la autora, la anterior antología que leí de ella me gustó mucho y estoy dispuesta a seguir leyendola. Y, quién sabe, quizá más adelante haga una relectura de esta recopilación y mi valoración cambie.
Sí, a mí también me ha disgustado haberle dado una estrellita. De hecho había considerado dejarlo sin valoración porque no estoy muy segura de si el problema fue el momento o el libro, pero luego de pensarlo durante unos minutos me di cuenta de que así es como me siento ahora y ponerle otra valoración sería mentirme.
A lo largo de estos cuentos volví a encontrar el estilo característico de Enriquez, una autora que logra hacer que lo cotidiano sea perturbador y los lugares cobren vida. Sin embargo, aquí no logré conectar con ninguna de las historias, era empezar a leer y pasar horas releyendo la misma página sin lograr que las palabras se convirtieran en imágenes o que las desgracias de los personajes me provocaran empatía. Me forcé tanto a seguir leyendo que me provoqué un bloqueo lector —es por eso que he estado sacando y poniendo libros de la estantería "leyendo"—, y el resultado siempre era el mismo. Me daba igual lo que pasara en cada historia. Si salvo alguna, quizá, es Carne, un relato sobre el fanatismo.
Todos los cuentos giran al rededor de lo cotidiano, cosas que son perfectamente posibles y un ligero toque sobrenatural que a veces pasa desapercibido. Si bien tocan una historia diferente, todos tienen algo en común: el protagonismo siempre cae sobre los personajes femeninos aún cuando el narrador es un hombre. Y es refrescante leer personajes femeninos de moral cuestionable, Enriquez no convierte a sus protagonistas en víctimas, ni en heroínas o santas, sino en personas que pueden ser tan malas como buenas, perversas, incluso. Personalmente, he leído muy pocos libros donde ocurra eso.
Mi estrella solitaria no significa que vaya a dejar de leer a la autora, la anterior antología que leí de ella me gustó mucho y estoy dispuesta a seguir leyendola. Y, quién sabe, quizá más adelante haga una relectura de esta recopilación y mi valoración cambie.
May 6, 2022
“Sometimes I think the crazies aren’t people, they’re not real. They’re like incarnations of the city’s madness [...] if they weren’t there we’d all kill each other”
this book is like the less erotic but more horrific version of Her Body and Other Parties: Stories and that’s everything i ever wanted and needed.
this book is like the less erotic but more horrific version of Her Body and Other Parties: Stories and that’s everything i ever wanted and needed.
October 15, 2022
"Los peligros de fumar en la cama" de Mariana Enríquez es una colección de cuentos maravillosamente extraños e inquietantes. Cada historia se enfoca en un elemento macabro, ya sean fantasmas, niños perdidos que regresan misteriosamente, fetiches, obsesiones, etc.
Mariana Enríquez es una escritora tan talentosa que es capaz de imaginar situaciones morbosas en las que normalmente no pensarías y transformarlas en terror. Cada historia se tambalea al borde de algo más grandioso, algo más horrible, pero, en última instancia, deja que el lector llene los vacíos que quedan al final. Como una pesadilla, cada historia culmina en el mismo epicentro del horror, con una sacudida similar a despertar una vez más en el mundo consciente, rodeado de formas etéreas en la oscuridad.
Mariana Enríquez es una escritora tan talentosa que es capaz de imaginar situaciones morbosas en las que normalmente no pensarías y transformarlas en terror. Cada historia se tambalea al borde de algo más grandioso, algo más horrible, pero, en última instancia, deja que el lector llene los vacíos que quedan al final. Como una pesadilla, cada historia culmina en el mismo epicentro del horror, con una sacudida similar a despertar una vez más en el mundo consciente, rodeado de formas etéreas en la oscuridad.
December 29, 2023
3.5 ⭐
imagina escrever assim.
imagina escrever assim.
August 30, 2021
The Dangers of Smoking is kind of an exciting collection of short stories by Argentinian author Mariana Enriquez, my first book by her. I had no idea what it was about but liked the cover, liked the title, and heard a bit of buzz. The stories are a blend of speculative fiction and horror--body horror, ghosts, missing children, ghost children, missing children coming back from the dead, ouija board contacts, lust, drugs, witchcraft, self harm. This is sort of like Shirley Jackson territory in a contemporary Argentina. There’s a kind of wild desperation in the stories. And the paranormal everywhere. And crazy passion. And maybe a touch of madness.
“Sometimes I think the crazies aren’t people, they’re not real. They’re like incarnations of the city’s madness, like escape valves. If they weren’t here, we’d all kill each other or die of stress.”
Two stories are about sexual fetishes. How do you get turned on? Feet? Earlobes? There’s always something fascinating and amusing to me about fetishes. In one story, "Where Are You, Dear Heart?", a woman has no interest in sexual intercourse, but she is crazy in lust for the sound of a human heart. She gets medical textbooks and looks at them, but when she hears beating hearts she goes off like the fourth of July. But it gets weirder and more disturbing as she is more turned on by heartbeats indicating defects, arrhythmia and so on. Sex with danger, right. She meets a guy who has had two heart surgeries and just listens to his heart, but then tries to manipulate it so it gets wilder. Masterfully strange story.
“Angelita Unearthed”: A girl finds baby bones in her grandma’s backyard, and there’s a baby ghost connected to it. Creepy and moving family history.
“The Dangers of Smoking In Bed”: Of course a woman dies, but others also smoke in bed. But the chief memory here is of nocturnal butterflies.
“Back When We Talked to the Dead”: Kids and a Ouija board and, you know, The Dead. Don’t do this at home, kids!
“Kids who Come Back”: Hundreds of kids who were missing come back, but how? Why? And why don’t their parents seem to want them back?! Mysterious and moving. Great story.
Each of the stories are narrated by a different young woman, all of whom live on the edge. I really liked it a lot. You can’t not listen to these women.
“Sometimes I think the crazies aren’t people, they’re not real. They’re like incarnations of the city’s madness, like escape valves. If they weren’t here, we’d all kill each other or die of stress.”
Two stories are about sexual fetishes. How do you get turned on? Feet? Earlobes? There’s always something fascinating and amusing to me about fetishes. In one story, "Where Are You, Dear Heart?", a woman has no interest in sexual intercourse, but she is crazy in lust for the sound of a human heart. She gets medical textbooks and looks at them, but when she hears beating hearts she goes off like the fourth of July. But it gets weirder and more disturbing as she is more turned on by heartbeats indicating defects, arrhythmia and so on. Sex with danger, right. She meets a guy who has had two heart surgeries and just listens to his heart, but then tries to manipulate it so it gets wilder. Masterfully strange story.
“Angelita Unearthed”: A girl finds baby bones in her grandma’s backyard, and there’s a baby ghost connected to it. Creepy and moving family history.
“The Dangers of Smoking In Bed”: Of course a woman dies, but others also smoke in bed. But the chief memory here is of nocturnal butterflies.
“Back When We Talked to the Dead”: Kids and a Ouija board and, you know, The Dead. Don’t do this at home, kids!
“Kids who Come Back”: Hundreds of kids who were missing come back, but how? Why? And why don’t their parents seem to want them back?! Mysterious and moving. Great story.
Each of the stories are narrated by a different young woman, all of whom live on the edge. I really liked it a lot. You can’t not listen to these women.
November 11, 2024
I think this was an almost perfect short story collection, although I might have to give it another go one day because certain stories left me baffled since I found the plotlines a bit muddled, and Ms. Enriquez trying to make her stories more succinct and compact to fit into a collection. But this is my only minor gripe. If I could, I would rate it 4.5 stars out of 5.
First, I think this may be one of the most, if not most horrifying collection of stories I have ever read in a long time. Original, twisty, and disturbing- they will chill you to the bone.
There are images and characters that will stay with you after you close the page. Dead baby ghosts, witches' curses, a man eating a cat, numerous dead, missing, and exploited children, a Barcelona whose setting is much more sinister and creeper than any other romantic and picturesque incarnation that I've ever read about; a pedophile ring, attempted suicide, a filmmaker searching to make weird film projects becomes a pornographer, and girls engaging in necrophilia and taking their love of a musician and his record "Meat" one step too far.
I found the story "No Birthday or Baptisms" to be the most disturbing of all. Nico the pornographer's life basically has no meaning, his life in horrific autopilot and mind inducing numbness.
Overall, this is an eerie, strange book of stories, compelling and compulsively readable, and really terrifying, taking me into thoughts of terror and stress.
But Ms. Enriquez is a wonderfully inventive writer who is merciless in how she treats her characters, and the state of our complicated, haunted and violent world.
It may be from a place of pessimism that she writes these stories from, but I am thrilled and in awe of any writer, who does not compromise their vision.
First, I think this may be one of the most, if not most horrifying collection of stories I have ever read in a long time. Original, twisty, and disturbing- they will chill you to the bone.
There are images and characters that will stay with you after you close the page. Dead baby ghosts, witches' curses, a man eating a cat, numerous dead, missing, and exploited children, a Barcelona whose setting is much more sinister and creeper than any other romantic and picturesque incarnation that I've ever read about; a pedophile ring, attempted suicide, a filmmaker searching to make weird film projects becomes a pornographer, and girls engaging in necrophilia and taking their love of a musician and his record "Meat" one step too far.
I found the story "No Birthday or Baptisms" to be the most disturbing of all. Nico the pornographer's life basically has no meaning, his life in horrific autopilot and mind inducing numbness.
Overall, this is an eerie, strange book of stories, compelling and compulsively readable, and really terrifying, taking me into thoughts of terror and stress.
But Ms. Enriquez is a wonderfully inventive writer who is merciless in how she treats her characters, and the state of our complicated, haunted and violent world.
It may be from a place of pessimism that she writes these stories from, but I am thrilled and in awe of any writer, who does not compromise their vision.
November 30, 2023
-Aunque no era tan famosa por aquel entonces, la autora era casi igual de sólida que ahora.-
Género. Relatos.
Lo que nos cuenta. El libro Los peligros de fumar en la cama (publicación original: 2009) ofrece una recopilación de trabajos breves de la autora que nos presentan a unas jóvenes que descubren el deseo y otros sentimientos, a un fantasma en un hotel, el hallazgo de unos huesos en un patio o las consecuencias de la muerte de una estrella del rock, entre otros temas.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
https://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com...
Género. Relatos.
Lo que nos cuenta. El libro Los peligros de fumar en la cama (publicación original: 2009) ofrece una recopilación de trabajos breves de la autora que nos presentan a unas jóvenes que descubren el deseo y otros sentimientos, a un fantasma en un hotel, el hallazgo de unos huesos en un patio o las consecuencias de la muerte de una estrella del rock, entre otros temas.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
https://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com...
September 8, 2023
Me gustó más que “Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego” 🫣.
February 15, 2023
Doce cuentos en los que Mariana Enríquez desdibuja con perturbadora eficacia la línea entre lo terrorífico y lo cotidiano. Armándose con elementos de horror clásico tales como apariciones, brujas, edificios encantados o la ouija, pero desplegándolos con un estilo inusualmente modernista que pareciera transformarlos en otra cosa mientras los entremezcla con los horrores que subyacen bajo la superficie de lo que nos gusta denominar el mundo real, aborda desde el fanatismo hasta los fetiches sexuales pasando por algo tan irrevocablemente doloroso como lo fueron las desapariciones de la dictadura.
Mariana Enríquez es una autora oscura, con un don para lo terrible y capaz de hacer un deleite de la exploración de todo lo escalofriante pero es también una potente voz actual que reinventa el horror para ya no evocar castillos abandonados al otro lado del mundo o pesadillas lúcidas de siglos atrás. Por el contrario lo que evoca es el día a día. Son cuentos que tienen lugar en la ordinariez de la rutina y que la quiebran sólo fugazmente mientras el eco de su marcado, cautivante y tenebroso grito se propaga incluso mucho después de finalizada la lectura de estas páginas.
Mariana Enríquez es una autora oscura, con un don para lo terrible y capaz de hacer un deleite de la exploración de todo lo escalofriante pero es también una potente voz actual que reinventa el horror para ya no evocar castillos abandonados al otro lado del mundo o pesadillas lúcidas de siglos atrás. Por el contrario lo que evoca es el día a día. Son cuentos que tienen lugar en la ordinariez de la rutina y que la quiebran sólo fugazmente mientras el eco de su marcado, cautivante y tenebroso grito se propaga incluso mucho después de finalizada la lectura de estas páginas.
December 2, 2022
Translation shortlisted for the Society of Authors Premio Valle Inclán
Shortlisted for 2021 International Booker longlist
The angel baby doesn’t look like a ghost. She doesn’t float and she isn’t pale and she doesn’t wear a white dress. She’s half rotted away, and she doesn’t talk. The first time she appeared, I thought it was a nightmare and I tried to wake up. When I couldn’t do it and I started to realize she was real, I screamed and cried and pulled the sheets over my head, my eyes squeezed tight and my hands over my ears so I couldn’t hear her—at that point I didn’t know she was mute. But when I came out from under there some hours later, the angel baby was still there, the remnants of an old blanket draped over her shoulders like a poncho. She was pointing her finger toward the outside, toward the window and the street, and that’s how I realized it was daytime. It’s weird to see a dead person during the day. I asked her what she wanted, but all she did was keep on pointing, like we were in a horror movie.
Megan McDowell has previously featured three times in the five years of the International Booker Prize, in 2017 and 2019 and 2020 for translation of books by Argentinian author Samanta Schweblin.
The first was Fever Dream, a brilliant novella originally published in 2014 as Distancia de rescate. The second was the collection Mouthful of Birds: Stories, largely based on an original collection Pájaros en la boca. But although the story collection came after the novella in English translation, it was an earlier work in the original (2010) and while the collection was strong, Fever Dream felt like a stylistic development of the shorter stories.
Both works managed to achieve the delicate balance of what the literary critic Todorov calls "the fantastic". An author can choose between a rational explanation for supernatural events - what Todorov calls "the uncanny" - and a supernatural explanation - what he calls the "marvellous." Todorov focuses on the difficult to occupy middle ground : “The fantastic is that hesitation experienced by a person who knows only the laws of nature, confronting an apparently supernatural event.”
The third McDowell/Schweblin novel, Little Eyes (Kentukis 2018) was less to my personal taste as more of a venture into speculative science-fiction.
Why is this relevant here?
Well, McDowell now makes her 4th appearance, with the story collection The Dangers of Smoking in Bed: Stories translated from an original by Mariana Enríquez, Los peligros de fumar en la cama from 2009. The collection consists of 12 short stories, all but one from 6 to 17 pages, although the longest piece is 50 pages long.
In the English this is marketed as the author’s “next collection”, after Things We Lost in the Fire (2017). However, as with Mouthful of Birds, the original was actually published earlier, with the 2017 collection taken from a 2016 original Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego. And from comments from GR friends who’ve read both, it sounds as if this is a less well developed work.
And the stories themselves have a similarly dark feel, but too many of them for my taste tipped into the “marvellous,” involving actual ghosts (such as the first story Angelita Unearthed from which the quote above comes), spirits and curses. Several are sexually explicit and others scatological - two stories both revolve around an incident where someone evacuates their bowels in the middle of the street.
Stylistically my preference was for those that centered around bizarre but more real-world obsession, notably Meat about two teenage girls with an infatuation with a pop star that, post his suicide, they extend to the anthropophagic, and Where Are You, Dear Heart about a woman with a literary-inspired (Helen Burns from Jane Eyre, Ippolit from The Idiot) fetish for pulmonary and then later cardiac patients.
But my favourite story of all was the longest and hence best developed - Kids Who Come Back - which, as the titles suggests, is a story where the children in a Buenos Aires who have disappeared over the years (runaways, abductees, those taken by a divorced parent) suddenly start to reappear, which should be on occasion for joy, except the children that return are oddly unchanged from those that vanished, despite the passage of time.
Overall - a worthwhile collection, and I may well pick up Things We Lost in the Fire, but not shortlist material for me.
Shortlisted for 2021 International Booker longlist
The angel baby doesn’t look like a ghost. She doesn’t float and she isn’t pale and she doesn’t wear a white dress. She’s half rotted away, and she doesn’t talk. The first time she appeared, I thought it was a nightmare and I tried to wake up. When I couldn’t do it and I started to realize she was real, I screamed and cried and pulled the sheets over my head, my eyes squeezed tight and my hands over my ears so I couldn’t hear her—at that point I didn’t know she was mute. But when I came out from under there some hours later, the angel baby was still there, the remnants of an old blanket draped over her shoulders like a poncho. She was pointing her finger toward the outside, toward the window and the street, and that’s how I realized it was daytime. It’s weird to see a dead person during the day. I asked her what she wanted, but all she did was keep on pointing, like we were in a horror movie.
Megan McDowell has previously featured three times in the five years of the International Booker Prize, in 2017 and 2019 and 2020 for translation of books by Argentinian author Samanta Schweblin.
The first was Fever Dream, a brilliant novella originally published in 2014 as Distancia de rescate. The second was the collection Mouthful of Birds: Stories, largely based on an original collection Pájaros en la boca. But although the story collection came after the novella in English translation, it was an earlier work in the original (2010) and while the collection was strong, Fever Dream felt like a stylistic development of the shorter stories.
Both works managed to achieve the delicate balance of what the literary critic Todorov calls "the fantastic". An author can choose between a rational explanation for supernatural events - what Todorov calls "the uncanny" - and a supernatural explanation - what he calls the "marvellous." Todorov focuses on the difficult to occupy middle ground : “The fantastic is that hesitation experienced by a person who knows only the laws of nature, confronting an apparently supernatural event.”
The third McDowell/Schweblin novel, Little Eyes (Kentukis 2018) was less to my personal taste as more of a venture into speculative science-fiction.
Why is this relevant here?
Well, McDowell now makes her 4th appearance, with the story collection The Dangers of Smoking in Bed: Stories translated from an original by Mariana Enríquez, Los peligros de fumar en la cama from 2009. The collection consists of 12 short stories, all but one from 6 to 17 pages, although the longest piece is 50 pages long.
In the English this is marketed as the author’s “next collection”, after Things We Lost in the Fire (2017). However, as with Mouthful of Birds, the original was actually published earlier, with the 2017 collection taken from a 2016 original Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego. And from comments from GR friends who’ve read both, it sounds as if this is a less well developed work.
And the stories themselves have a similarly dark feel, but too many of them for my taste tipped into the “marvellous,” involving actual ghosts (such as the first story Angelita Unearthed from which the quote above comes), spirits and curses. Several are sexually explicit and others scatological - two stories both revolve around an incident where someone evacuates their bowels in the middle of the street.
Stylistically my preference was for those that centered around bizarre but more real-world obsession, notably Meat about two teenage girls with an infatuation with a pop star that, post his suicide, they extend to the anthropophagic, and Where Are You, Dear Heart about a woman with a literary-inspired (Helen Burns from Jane Eyre, Ippolit from The Idiot) fetish for pulmonary and then later cardiac patients.
But my favourite story of all was the longest and hence best developed - Kids Who Come Back - which, as the titles suggests, is a story where the children in a Buenos Aires who have disappeared over the years (runaways, abductees, those taken by a divorced parent) suddenly start to reappear, which should be on occasion for joy, except the children that return are oddly unchanged from those that vanished, despite the passage of time.
Overall - a worthwhile collection, and I may well pick up Things We Lost in the Fire, but not shortlist material for me.
May 6, 2021
Shortlisted for The International Booker Prize 2021.
Have you ever woken up gasping, just marginally escaping from the throes of a familiar yet intangible nightmare? Mariana Enriquez crafts a world composed of such nightmares in The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, a world in which your own malaise leaves the hollow chambers of your mind only to materialize in the world you inhabit.
Sigmund Freud thought of dreams as the royal road to the unconscious and it is this unconscious desires and terrors that we see being projected onto the fabric of the story in The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, and thus Enriquez invites us to examine our own dreams, our own world and to posit that eternal question - how much of this is real?
I was skeptical when I saw that this was a collection of short stories, but the skepticism soon melted away as I read each story. I have to warn you though, each story ends quite abruptly and there are no plain conclusions. Instead, the author leaves us to ponder upon all the loose ends and the ambiguous character arcs. And that was perhaps what charmed me the most about this collection - they're all just incomplete nightmares.
Have you ever woken up gasping, just marginally escaping from the throes of a familiar yet intangible nightmare? Mariana Enriquez crafts a world composed of such nightmares in The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, a world in which your own malaise leaves the hollow chambers of your mind only to materialize in the world you inhabit.
Sigmund Freud thought of dreams as the royal road to the unconscious and it is this unconscious desires and terrors that we see being projected onto the fabric of the story in The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, and thus Enriquez invites us to examine our own dreams, our own world and to posit that eternal question - how much of this is real?
I was skeptical when I saw that this was a collection of short stories, but the skepticism soon melted away as I read each story. I have to warn you though, each story ends quite abruptly and there are no plain conclusions. Instead, the author leaves us to ponder upon all the loose ends and the ambiguous character arcs. And that was perhaps what charmed me the most about this collection - they're all just incomplete nightmares.
September 21, 2023
Eh, I think I'm just not much of a fan of Mariana Enríquez's writing. I had high hopes at the beginning since I enjoyed “Our Lady of the Quarry” quite a bit (and “Angelita Unearthed” wasn't terrible), but everything that came after was pretty lackluster. With this two-star rating and the weak three stars I left Things We Lost in the Fire, I doubt I'll read anything else by this author.
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