SYNOPSIS: In this mosaic horror/crime novel, ghosts and old gods guide the hands of those caught up in a violent struggle to save the soul of the American southwest. A man tasked with shuttling children over the border believes the Virgin Mary is guiding him towards final justice. A woman offers colonizer blood to the Mother of Chaos. A boy joins corpse destroyers to seek vengeance for the death of his father. These stories intertwine with those of a vengeful spirit and a hungry creature to paint a timely, compelling, pulpy portrait of revenge, family, and hope.
I'm not entirely sure where to start, except for I love this book wholeheartedly. It's unlike anything I've ever read, and Iglesias made my auto-buy list right away. The format of the book, following several characters in short sections with many of them connecting near the end, was really well done; it brought together the feelings of a novel and of a good anthology. The subject matter is dark; the book absolutely kicked my ass but it wasn't the type of nihilistic darkness that would make me regret reading it in the first place. Quotes/lines: ((spoilers below!)) PEDRITO -- 'Pedrito knew they didn't really think the fish was a ghost that lived in dead water, but that telling him these things was the best way to teach him about the creature, the best way to get him to pay attention and prevent him from underestimating the enormous fish and its mouthful of daggers.' Having seen alligator gar, yes to all of this. (also, 'a ghost that lived in dead water' is so evocative) -- The mix of Spanish and English threw me off a little bit at first (it's been way too long since high school Spanish) but it honestly surprised me how much I can understand due to context and remembering more than I thought I did. I can only imagine that some editors would've balked at the decision to do this, and I'm glad it stayed like it is. -- 'When fishing, nothingness was full of possibility, quietness was a timeless inhalation before a scream, and inaction was just a fuse of indeterminate length before an explosion.' I've been fishing before and was never a fan, but this kid's clear love for it is actually making me feel nostalgic. -- OH FUCK -- Oh Pedrito, sweetie, no no no RUN KID -- what the everloving hell you racist asshole if you want to kill yourself then do it without taking someone else with you THE MOTHER -- I want to hug this lady so much. -- 'all that was left was emptiness, an all-consuming hollowness that she couldn't fill regardless of what she did or thought. ... She was stuck in a perennial state of agitated stagnation.' She's in a much different situation, but hello there depression/PPD. -- Body horror x 1000 AUGH THE COYOTE -- 'and castrating rapists doesn't help children get across the border' No, but damn is it satisfying. -- 'She thanked him in a cracked voice that reminded him of those dolls that talk after you pull a string on their back.' -- 'If they look too good, too healthy, the fucking gringos will do everything in their power to send them back to whatever hell they came from. Hurt them just right and a better future will make their scars feel like blessings. Pain is sometimes the only path to deliverance.' If you'll excuse me I'm gathering matches to burn down the world JAIME -- 'No, the only thing he could do was wonder why he couldn't do anything now, why he felt like he was frozen, and why that frozen feeling locked him in place and forced him to stay in his room, without the need for barbed-wire fences or guards. ... He knew these simple tasks would help him escape the trap he was setting himself. Unfortunately, moving his body struck him as an impossibility, something that could only be accomplished with the help of a few strong men.' This sounds like the worst case of executive dysfunction ever. Poor guy. -- Kick his ass, Jaime! -- oh shit he deserved it but the cops won't bother understanding that run ALMA -- 'The idea was there, an unformed thing waiting for her to shape it into words, but the space it had to travel to get from her brain to the page was apparently plagued by hungry predators.' This seems particularly relevant at the beginning of NaNo. ;) -- Okay the rest of this section is going to be me quoting my favorite parts because THIS SECTION. I do not even have words. It's horrifyingly beautiful. -- 'I hear her voice in my blood say that no person should ever be owned and that laughing in the face of death is better than having to live as abused property.' -- 'and a kid becomes a walking miracle as she crosses the border without being raped or abused or denigrated' -- 'I hear the obscene screams of angry gods who were forced to dress their black skin in whiteness to survive once their devotees were brought to the Caribbean. Their strength is there, coursing through the streets like blood courses through my veins, because we still call their names, pray to them, light candles, offer them tiny deaths and food and fire and dreams.' -- 'and a million other dumb comments that scholars say I should call 'microaggressions' but that sometimes feel anything but micro.' -- 'I hear the cultures that came together to make my blood scream at the fact that no one wanted things to turn out the way they did.' -- 'I hear all this and more, and then I open my eyes and read about others wanting "pure blood," wanting to keep their racial purity, their god a blue-eyed hipster, their bastardized language intact. That makes me laugh with closed fists. You don't know the beauty of flavor, pendejo. You keep your dumb ideas of purity and I'll revel in the music of my mixed blood, my mutt blood, my earthly blood, my multitudinous blood, my brown and Rican and black and European and white and African blood, my eternal, magic, ancient blood.' This was the first section of the book that I read, an excerpt that the writer posted on Twitter, and I bought it straight away. -- 'To do it, she will need more than words.' Honey. What're you doing? Please don't hurt yourself. The tone of your thoughts makes me nervous. ((just do a performance art piece of what you just wrote; anyone unaffected wouldn't be reachable anyway)) LA BRUJA -- ooooh, ghost story -- 'finding each other in that same miraculous way loose hairs in a house can find each other and morph into small balls of discarded human' -- 'The third hour brought with it rumors of abandonment.' Oh no. No. -- 'The children were the first to go.' I am not emotionally equipped for this oh god -- 'Inmaculada swore revenge against the men who had done this to them, swore she'd stick around until all the coyotes were dead and there was enough blood along the border to make powerful people take care of the problems that had put them in that trailer.' how do i hug a ghost -- 'The thing that had screamed that night was the soul of a shattered, hurt mother facing the loss of everything she loved, and that is something even the Devil should fear.' godDAMN. PEDRITO -- Pedrito!! I was wondering when the stories would start connecting. -- 'He also knew that what he was going to do would be bad but, as his abuelo told him more than once, sometimes bad things are right.' Pedrito, sweetie, what are you up to? -- I love that the taxi driver tried to give him his rosary. THE MOTHER -- 'The dishes were waiting for her hands. She hadn't cooked in two days, and there was no more bread or tortas in the house. The laundry was a stinky, multicolored pile near the bathroom door that she hadn't dared to look at in days for fear of what she'd see moving around in there if she did.' Honey. THE COYOTE -- Clemencia I adore you -- 'President Pendejo' accurate af -- listen to Clemencia sir JAIME -- 'Jaime smashed his open hand against the steering wheel three times, and abandoned the last shreds of common sense.' Not good not good. -- I saw it coming but noooo. ALMA -- 'She knew her only real job was creating something that hadn't existed until the moment she brought it to life.' <3 -- 'That's when Alma heard the giggling coming from the closet.' Congrats book you just joined the 'scared the hell out of me' ranks LA BRUJA -- 'She was a goddess standing on the dividing line between right and wrong, her head among the angels and her tired feet bathed in the blood of innocents.' PEDRITO -- 'La Casa de la Muerte'? Yes, that sounds like a very safe place to approach alone -- YIKES THE MOTHER -- 'She was going to kill that fucking thing, or die trying.' I do not know whether you're right and I should root for you or whether this is some kind of grief-induced psychosis and you need help. A particularly horrifying metaphor for depression? THE COYOTE -- 'One of them started kneeling, his mouth running in what surely was an apology or a desperate prayer, but La Virgencita moved. She brought her arms behind her back and then back to the front again. Two Sig Sauers 1911, just like the one the coyote carried around.' ...this is the most amazing mental image ever -- okay, holy missions never end well would you please listen to Clemencia JAIME -- oh no I don't want to read about him actually dying, I like the kid. He hurt a wife-beater; he did the right thing. -- 'Tiny colorful angels. Misplaced Christmas lights.' **crying** ALMA -- 'She was angry and frustrated, and something was telling her that making assholes bleed was the only way to improve her mood.' As much as I understand, please do not get yourself killed. -- "I assure you people will talk about it for months." UM. LA BRUJA -- 'Seeing those people handle the bodies stirred the maelstrom of feelings inside Inmaculada until it threatened to become a black hole that would swallow the world.' -- 'She understood the scream in a way she couldn't share.' PEDRITO -- I've heard of La Llorona and El Cucuy and El Chupacabra, but not El Cadejo. -- So he has the guy killed and then he takes the shoes and leaves them for people crossing the desert with an admonishment to care about the living. Santos fascinates me. (in a stay-far-away kind of way) THE MOTHER -- 'There was a dull pain that made her think of cavities, but too many teeth were moving around in there.' eeeeeeeugh THE COYOTE -- "Thankfully the fucking sumbitches showed up early and I took them out with minimal fuzz." Padre, you obviously had one hell of a creepy past, but I can't say I don't like you now. -- "I wouldn't cross that woman." Listen to the Padre. If you go against him and Clemencia it might not be you who pays for it. -- 'Then, for the first time, he realized that the questions he had asked himself so many times were stupid. He was a brown man, and for many people, the color of his skin was as bad as the images on Padre Frank's body.' That just hit like a fist to the gut. -- I want this to go well but I'm so scared it won't. ALMA -- Alma honey, why the hell do you have machetes? -- Her 'muse' is La Bruja, I take it? -- 'Their gig was easy: barricade the front and back doors' shit -- 'She hoped this level of revenge was enough to go viral.' I'm sure it will, but it's not going to have the framing you want. LA BRUJA -- 'Anger was a planet covered in water that simultaneously obeyed the pull of too many whimsical moons.' PEDRITO -- "Once we're done with these cabrones, people on both sides of la frontera will know that fucking with kids will not be tolerated.' I wish it would work that way. THE MOTHER -- Please be killing an actual monster. I think that you were?? I'm going to assume that you were and that this has a happy ending. THE COYOTE -- OH NO I JUST REALIZED HOW THESE TIE TOGETHER LA BRUJA -- 'Destruction was part of the answer and certainly something many deserved, but it wasn't the only element necessary for change.'
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A WORLD WITH A BLUER SUNMy reviews are set up a little like live-tweets: I write down lines I like/impressions as I read, and then transcribe. Reviews will contain spoilers, but I'll give a warning before they start. Archives
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