From Powells.com
Hot new releases and under-the-radar gems for adults and kids.
Staff Pick
I really, really believe that Our Share of Night is a masterpiece. It’s such a lush book with vividly rendered, complicated characters; a world that is dangerous and slippery; and language that is so precise, you won’t be able to help being sucked into the depths of this book’s horror. I thought a lot about 2666 while reading this — the structure, the section told from a journalist’s perspective — which is a really high compliment. And the eyelids. The eyelids! Absolute masterpiece. Recommended By Kelsey F., Powells.com
This book haunted me for weeks. Set in 1980s Argentina, after the atrocities of the "dirty war," Enriquez's ambitious horror epic tackles loss, exploitation, and generational curses with mesmerizing prose and terrifying imagery, though even the freakiest bits feel trite by comparison to the history Enriquez alludes to here. A compassionate and unflinching rumination on inherited trauma, both personal and national, and what we choose to do with it — haunting, hopeful, and brutal as hell (def one to check up on trigger warnings for). Recommended By SitaraG, Powells.com
Our Share of Night is a brutal epic of a horror story. It's simultaneously a family drama and an occult nightmare; a coming-of-age story and a journey into darkness. Yet, Enriquez never loses sight of her characters' intimate realities as traumatized and grieving people. I'm in awe of how much I cared about these characters, and how they've stuck with me long after reading the final page. I can't recommend this one enough! Recommended By Mar S., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
A woman's mysterious death puts her husband and son on a collision course with her demonic family in the long-awaited debut novel from the International Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed — "the most exciting discovery I've made in fiction for some time" (Kazuo Ishiguro)
"A masterful, unsettling novel from one of Latin America's most exciting authors." — Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of Mexican Gothic and The Daughter of Doctor Moreau
"We have children so we can continue, they are our immortality."
A young father and son set out on a road trip, devastated by the death of the wife and mother they both loved. United in grief, the pair travels to her family home, where they must confront the terrifying legacy she has bequeathed. The woman they grieve came from a clan like no other — a centuries-old secret society called the Order that commits unspeakable acts in search of eternal life. For Gaspar, the son, this vampiric cult is his destiny.
Now Gaspar is in danger. As the Order tries to possess him, father and son take flight, yet nothing will stop the Order for nothing is beyond them. Hunted by evil and surrounded by horror, Gaspar and his father attempt to outrun a powerful family that will do anything to ensure its own survival. But can any of us escape the fate that awaits us?
Moving back and forth in time, from London in the swinging 1960s to the brutal years of Argentina's military dictatorship and its turbulent aftermath, Our Share of Night is a novel like no other: a family story, a ghost story, a story of the occult and the supernatural, a book about the complexities of love and longing with many queer subplots and themes — this is the masterwork of one of Latin America's most exciting novelists, "a mesmerizing writer," says Dave Eggers, "who demands to be read."
Review
"Our Share of Night is epic and intimate, lyrical and brutal, horrifying and defiantly hopeful...I'm going to press this book into the hands of everyone I know and dare them to open the door to its Other Place." — Paul Tremblay, bestselling author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Pallbearers Club
Review
"I was positively bewitched by Our Share of Night. Towering, electric, wild —this novel is a masterpiece and a true original." — Laura van den Berg, bestselling author of The Third Hotel
Review
"Reader, beware! Our Share of Night is a novel so disquieting, so unsettling that I could neither put it down nor read it late at night. Mariana Enriquez's short stories had already made me a fan for life — her novel is going to haunt me for the rest of my life." — Kelly Link, author of White Cat, Black Dog and Get in Trouble, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
About the Author
Mariana Enriquez is a writer and editor based in Buenos Aires. She has published two story collections in English, Things We Lost in the Fire and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, which was a finalist for the International Booker Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Speculative Fiction, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Fiction.
Megan McDowell is an award-winning translator based in Santiago, Chile.