Book Review: A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enríquez

 

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Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for allowing me to read this ARC!

Content Warning: murder, death, violence, rape/sexual assault, suicide.

Set mostly in the author's home country of Argentina, this collection of tales -- all of them involving horrors from beyond the veil -- seeks to explore the lives of ordinary people, mostly women, as they deal with terrors both paranormal and human. A retired doctor who fights off ghosts for her neighborhood of right-wingers frightened of the nearby villa miseria; a vintage clothing shop that discovers the dresses they've purchased hold a malevolence they can hardly fathom; a couple rents an Airbnb in a cozy small town that harbors more than meets the eye; a cemetery of abandoned refrigerators harbors a long-hidden secret. These stories and many more feature in Enriquez's journey into the mysteries of her birthplace.

I am a huge fan of Enríquez, so I was beyond delighted to get the ARC for this anthology of paranormal-themed stories. She has a unique voice that seamlessly captures both the sheer ordinariness of daily life and the abject terror of experiencing something that should not exist. Her previous novel, Our Share of Night, explores many of the themes featured here, and yet all of the stories are refreshingly original, and it seems that she always has something new and fascinating to say.

Not all of the stories are completely successful, but as a whole, this collection serves as a breathtakingly adept and subtle analysis of class, misogyny, and the ghosts of Argentina's past -- both its bloody colonization and its more recent dictatorship. There are a few here that feel particularly powerful, and many of those living outside of Argentina will relate to the commentary spread throughout about fascism and its brutal grip.

Most of these have elements of an almost Lovecraftian or, perhaps more fittingly, Lynchian horror -- tales of body grotesquerie, a particular focus on women and their interaction with a misogynistic society hellbent on consuming their bodies. Some of my favorites in this collection are apt metaphors for the particular kind of violence men enact upon women: the family mystery of disappearing faces, all connected to a brutal rapist; the clothing shop that purchases dresses from a man who despises his wife and, in turn, womanhood itself. I also enjoy how much LGBTQ culture and queerness itself Enríquez always manages to incorporate into her writing, in a naturalistic way that some writers struggle with. I suspect it is because this is the norm in Enríquez's own circle, but still, it's a terribly refreshing thing to see in an author whose novels and stories don't necessarily revolve around being queer.

Just like in Our Share of Night, A Sunny Place for Shady People feels esoteric, occult, perfectly and wonderfully off the beaten path. Enríquez is one of those authors that I read compulsively, and when I pick up one of her books -- no matter its theme or subject matter -- I find myself swallowed up by the world she manages to create. There's just something compelling about her writing that makes putting it down difficult to do once you've picked it up. Her characters, too, feel so natural, as if you are not reading someone's creation but instead simply overhearing a conversation, meeting a new person. 

I cannot recommend giving this one a shot enough. Beautifully written and fantastical in its creation of a world where reality is just ever-so-slightly warped!