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What are you reading this week? [7/16/23] (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago by McBinary@kbin.social to c/books@kbin.social

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What book is currently on your nightstand?
Who is the author?
What genre?
How do you like it?
Would you recommend it to others?

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[–] nothingspecial@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríquez, translated by Megan McDowell

I've been reading such a long list of rave reviews from authors like Kazuo Ishiguro and Alan Moore and publications like the LA Review of Books as well as hearing the same from close friends that I finally bumped this book to the top of my backlog stack.

It's a horror book set in the early '80s in Argentina, weaving the kind of mystical conspiracy of Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum or Pérez-Reverte's The Club Dumas and Ninth Gate novels over and through the very real state terrorism of the Argentinian Junta's Dirty War. I'm only about 75 pages into the 600 or so, and the slow-burn opening is just now starting to unfold into something more overtly disturbing, but the deceptively simple/basic prose creates a remarkably sophisticated and subtle story that is creeping into me like magic. Disturbing magic, lol.

Highly recommend.