Synopses & Reviews
In these wildly imaginative, devilishly daring tales of the macabre, internationally bestselling author Mariana Enriquez brings contemporary Argentina to vibrant life as a place where shocking inequality, violence, and corruption are the law of the land, while military dictatorship and legions of desaparecidos loom large in the collective memory. In these stories, reminiscent of Shirley Jackson and Julio Cortazar, three young friends distract themselves with drugs and pain in the midst a government-enforced blackout; a girl with nothing to lose steps into an abandoned house and never comes back out; to protest a viral form of domestic violence, a group of women set themselves on fire.
But alongside the black magic and disturbing disappearances, these stories are fueled by compassion for the frightened and the lost, ultimately bringing these characters--mothers and daughters, husbands and wives--into a surprisingly familiar reality. Written in hypnotic prose that gives grace to the grotesque, Things We Lost in the Fire is a powerful exploration of what happens when our darkest desires are left to roam unchecked, and signals the arrival of an astonishing and necessary voice in contemporary fiction.
Review
"These stories unsettle; they disturb; they disquiet. Read them!" Kelly Link
Review
"These stunning, incandescent stories... crackle with sophisticated weirdness, illuminating everyday activities against the underbelly of the macabre... Similar to Shirley Jackson and Jac Jemc, Enriquez is certain to dazzle and discomfit." Booklist
Review
"[S]taggering in its nuanced ability to throw readers off balance... rich descriptions of narcos, addicts, muggers, and transvestites quickly transport readers to an alien world... A rich and malcontent stew of stories about the everyday terrors that wait around each new corner." Kirkus
Review
"Enriquez's particular gift is to intuit that horror and ghost stories - ancient genres, as old as humanity itself - might make better gateways into a country's past than straightforward narrative. Her ghosts are not conventional spectres, by any means; it is the people - homeless street children, groups of women with a collective history around burns - and the places that she writes about that are demon-haunted." Financial Times
Review
"Enriquez's stories are historically aware and class-conscious, but her characters never avail themselves of sentimentalism or comfort. She's after a truth more profound, and more disturbing, than whatever the strict dictates of realism allow....[P]ropulsive and mesmerizing, laced with vivid descriptions of the grotesque...and the darkest humor." New York Times Book Review
Review
“When I read Mariana Enriquez’s stories, I forget where I am. I miss my subway stop. I hold my breath. Her fiction is that pulse-racingly superb, that electric and original. Mariana Enriquez is an essential voice in contemporary fiction, and The Things We Lost in the Fire will be a sensation.” Laura van den Berg
Review
“…[S]lim but phenomenal…in [Enriquez’s] hands, the country’s inequality, beauty, and corruption tangle together to become a manifestation of our own darkest thoughts and fears. The spookiness of these 12 stories sets into the reader’s mind like a jet stone, sparkling through all that darkness.” Vanity Fair
Review
“These spookily clear-eyed, elementally intense stories are the business. I find myself no more able to defend myself from their advances than Enriquez’s funny, brutal, bruised characters are able to defend themselves from life as it’s lived.” Helen Oyeyemi
Review
“Mariana Enriquez is a mesmerizing writer who demands to be read. Like Bolaño, she is interested in matters of life and death, and her fiction hits with the force of a freight train. ’The Dirty Kid’ is one of the most memorable and brave stories I’ve read in years. It lingers in the mind for weeks, and redefined my sense of Buenos Aires, a city I love dearly.” Dave Eggers
Synopsis
The "propulsive and mesmerizing" (The New York Times Book Review) story collection by the International Booker-shortlisted author of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed The short stories of Mariana Enriquez are:
"The most exciting discovery I've made in fiction for some time."--Kazuo Ishiguro
"Phenomenal."--Vanity Fair
"Violent and cool, told in voices so lucid they feel spoken."--The Boston Globe
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Boston Globe, Paste, Words Without Borders, Grub Street, Remezcla, Entropy
Electric, disturbing, and exhilarating, the stories of Things We Lost in the Fire explore multiple dimensions of life and death in contemporary Argentina. Each haunting tale simmers with the nation's troubled history, but among the abandoned houses, black magic, superstitions, lost loves, and regrets, there is also friendship, compassion, and humor.
In these stories, reminiscent of Shirley Jackson and Julio Cort zar, three young friends distract themselves with drugs and pain in the midst a government-enforced blackout; a girl with nothing to lose steps into an abandoned house and never comes back out; to protest a viral form of domestic violence, a group of women set themselves on fire.
Translated by the National Book Award-winning Megan McDowell, these "slim but phenomenal" (Vanity Fair) stories explore what happens when our darkest desires are left to roam unchecked and show why Mariana Enriquez has become one of the most celebrated new voices in global literature.
About the Author
Mariana Enriquez is a writer and editor based in Buenos Aires, where she contributes to a number of newspapers and literary journals, both fiction and nonfiction.