The Dangers of Smoking in Bed

hardcover, 208 pagine

Pubblicato il 12 Gennaio 2021 da Hogarth.

ISBN:: 978-0-593-13407-8

(1 recensione)

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 …

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.

1 edizione

mikerickson@bookwyrm.social ha recensito The Dangers of Smoking in Bed di Mariana Enríquez

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3 stelle

You know I can respect when an author just throws all caution to the wind and doesn't concern themselves with pulling any punches. There is some weird shit that goes down in this short story collection that someone else might've massaged down or merely implied offscreen, but you're getting the full, horrible, unambiguous description of whatever horror is befalling a character, whether you like it or not.

Per my usual approach, I'm gonna rate this collection as a cumulative whole rather than break out each of the twelve stories given here. I generally found there to be a consistent level of quality among them, though I had favorites of course. And the uniquely Argentine and feminine spin on each story (each protagonist was a woman/teen girl) will definitely make this stand out in my memory going forward compared to other anthologies I've read. Anyway, these were my favorites:

"Back When …

You know I can respect when an author just throws all caution to the wind and doesn't concern themselves with pulling any punches. There is some weird shit that goes down in this short story collection that someone else might've massaged down or merely implied offscreen, but you're getting the full, horrible, unambiguous description of whatever horror is befalling a character, whether you like it or not.

Per my usual approach, I'm gonna rate this collection as a cumulative whole rather than break out each of the twelve stories given here. I generally found there to be a consistent level of quality among them, though I had favorites of course. And the uniquely Argentine and feminine spin on each story (each protagonist was a woman/teen girl) will definitely make this stand out in my memory going forward compared to other anthologies I've read. Anyway, these were my favorites:

"Back When We Talked to the Dead" - Five teenage girls mess around with a Ouija board. Simple premise that actually got a spook out of me.

"Where Are You, Dear Heart?" - A woman discovers she has a fetish for listening to atypical heartbeats and goes waaay down the deep end of a niche community.

"The Well" - One of the most terrifying and depressing depictions of severe paranoia I've ever read.