![]() ![]() I loved ‘Unamuno’s Boxes’ about the taxi driver, ‘Roberto’, ‘Dishwasher’, ‘Tiecher vs Nietzsche’, and ‘Elena-Marie Sandoz’. The first story she really didn’t need to go that hard but she did, beginning with an image of a dentist picking up her neighbours dentures and the neighbour throwing themselves out of a window and landing dead in front of her. So, compulsive and haunting little gems of delicious grotesquery - many thanks to Pushkin Press for an ARC via NetGalley. I especially appreciate the unexpectedness of Bazterrica's vision, not just at the narrative level but also in the word choices through which the stories are expressed (thanks also to the translator). And there's a nice eliding between the dreadfulness of relationships and something more figurative: I'm thinking of the edgy 'Candy Pink' here. ![]() The tales vary in length and in narrative voice: those articulated through the tones of young girls worked especially well for me. With a strong urban vibe and recourse to issues of death, sexuality and gender, these veer between moments of dark, dark humour to the claustrophobic classic scariness of 'The Solitary Ones'. ![]() Compulsive and haunting little gems of delicious grotesqueryįollowing her Tender is the Flesh, this is another bold offering showcasing Bazterrica's grotesque and macabre imagination, though the stories here are more horror-adjacent than the nauseating pushed-to-the-logical-extremes of Flesh. ![]()
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