Teresa's Reviews > Permagel

Though not told dramatically or pathetically through its first-person narrator, this novella is full of the interior drama and pathos of life, including the family dynamics of what reads as a narcissistic mother, a silent father, and sisters in sometimes uneasy solidarity. Though the sisters are outwardly different, they might not be as inwardly different as they project.

From the start of the book, the narrator plans and unplans her suicide. Her sexual encounters, including the actions and thoughts of her ten-year-old self, are all stated in detail, bluntly, even graphically, though it never felt that way to me. The translator’s note perhaps helps explain why that is.

The ending is jarring, almost in a gimmicky way, but since I liked several aspects of it and I’m not inclined to think of anything better, that’s a quibble. Baltasar’s prose is not similar to Elena Ferrante’s, but since I know this is one of three standalones about women who may or may not be the same person, or at least aspects of, I thought of Ferrante’s three early standalones. I’ll be looking out for any similarities as I read the other books of the Baltasar triptych.