You cannot imagine the shock I had when I first opened this book and I was hit by a wall of text: no paragraphs, no dialogue marks… It’s a surprise that I liked it so much.
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| ★★★★☆ |
Hurricane Season follows various unreliable narrators from a small village in Mexico. It starts with a crime, and from that moment onwards we are trying to put together the puzzle of the witch’s death. I read this book for a book club, otherwise I am not sure I would have encountered it - this only goes to show how important reading outside your comfort zone is and how important book clubs are.
"They say the place is hot, that it won't be long before they send in the marines to restore order in the region. They say the heat's driven the locals crazy, that it's not normal - May and not a single drop of rain - and that the hurricane season's coming hard, that it must be bad vibes, jinxes, causing all that bleakness: decapitated bodies, maimed bodies, rolled-up, bagged-up bodies dumped on the roadside or in hastily dug graves on the outskirts of town."
It Came in like a Wrecking Ball
Initially the author wanted to write a true crime novel after reading a horrifying article about a similar murder in a similar village in Mexico, but due to the dangers associated with an investigative story in the area, she opted for fiction and personally, I think this worked way better as a means to bring attention to the drug trafficking and corruption issues in contemporary Mexico.
Each chapter is told from a different POV, focusing on the relationship each narrator has with the witch but also offering us a glimpse into the challenges the youth face in a village ruled by corruption and poverty.
"There's no reasoning with dog, two ferocious dogs who refuse to let go of their prey until they've been torn to shreds."
The Language, The Text
Don’t be like me. Don’t get intimidated by the wall of text you get when you open this book. That is part of the magic of this book. I recommend reading it as fast as possible, with as little breaks as possible and, no matter what, do not stop mid-chapter!
This book envelops you and takes you in like a storm. If you want to not get lost and if you want to get out of it, then DO NOT STOP READING! Even if the text wall is intimidating, the storytelling is actually fast-paced and full of energy. The language is vibrant (and dirty) and definitely not for the faint of heart, but it brings you closer to the culture portrayed.
"And Yesenia also knew, as she drowned in the old woman’s furious eyes, that Grandma despised her with every ounce of her being and in that very moment she was putting a curse on Yesenia, and in the faintest of voices Yesenia begged for forgiveness and explained that it had all been for her, but it was too late: once again, Grandma hit Yesenia where it hurt most, dying right there, trembling with hate in the arms of her eldest granddaughter."
Violent and Dark
This is a book that needs to be discussed and made sense of with other people. It has a strong language that might be hard to digest, but this only better emphasizes the novel's strong, dark and violent themes. There is a lot of internalised misogyny in this book, a lot of internalised homophobia, a terribly lot of poverty and suffering and, above all else, corruption, but in spite of all this it will somehow make you more emphatic, kinder, gentler... You will meet an array of complex characters and it won't be a comfortable experience, but you might learn something about yourself in the process.
It's a dark book skillfully written, wrapped in a fierce energy language wise. It is a powerful read and a darkly realistic portrait of poverty and corruption and how hard it is to escape it, if that is even possible.
"The rain can't hurt you now, and the darkness doesn't last forever. See there? See that light shining in the distance? The little light that looks like a star? That's where you're headed, he told them, that's the way out of this hole."
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor was published in 2017 and won the German International Literature Award
( a German prize for translated fiction).