Heather Parry

Orpheus Builds a Girl

Laura Dobie

It was seven hours across to America. Just seven hours to change who we were entirely. As we neared that new country Luci slept, still red and with her face all covered in rage. I slipped under Papá's arm while he looked out at the dying afternoon and asked him why we had to go to America. He said we were leaving Cuba because Mamá needed ice for her daiquiris; no woman could live in so hot a city without her ice.

It is not hard to see a man's darkest desires. No matter how cleverly they think they hide it, you can always see it, plain as day.

At that, she reached her spoon over the table and took the last mouthful of my sweet black cherry. I laughed, the greedy litle Luci never changing, but as I looked at her, black under the eyes, her hair thinning as it grew, her chest heaving for breath, my hope for her recovery died a little too.

This is a beautifully written and evocative description of grief.

Grief does not go away, but it does change, slowly. It turns from a hollow pit inside you to something you carry with you instead, a something, a shard of glass with its sharp end buried in the marrow of your bones. You can't push it out, but you do grow around it, like a tree engulfing a knife thrust into its bark.

This guy really said he joined "a youth organisation" and it pretty clearly was the goddamn Hitler Youth.

Absolutely harrowing and devastating. I feel like this novel gets a lot of praise for its gruesomeness - something that it, indeed, does excellently (the descriptions are visceral and vivid enough that they almost become tangible) - but it is the horror of the whole denouement that it manages to convey even better and the deep sadness that comes with it.

In this setting, "Orpheus Builds a Girl" manages to tackle themes of identity, racism and bodily autonomy and how they interwove. Particularly notable is how it never directly names (political) events, yet the historical context is clear to the reader. In line with this, it also stays true to the POV's of each character. For example, von Tore never names the organisation of which he was a part but it is clear it was the Nazis, nor does he feel any regret for what he has done during his time in Germany (or after), as many do not; he remains convinced in his reality throughout the whole novel. In this way, the novel both avoids treating the readers like children and creates a sense of autenticity.

It is, in short, a novel that is written with a lot of intention and thoughtfulness about what it wants to say and it works very, very well. Every year, I have one "sleeper hit" of a book that I am not 100% convinced I'd like but then becomes one of the best I have read in the year. This might just be this year's.

This guy really said he joined "a youth organisation" and it pretty clearly was the goddamn Hitler Youth.

Absolutely harrowing and devastating. I feel like this novel gets a lot of praise for its gruesomeness - something that it, indeed, does excellently (the descriptions are visceral and vivid enough that they almost become tangible) - but it is the horror of the whole denouement that it manages to convey even better and the deep sadness that comes with it.

In this setting, "Orpheus Builds a Girl" manages to tackle themes of identity, racism and bodily autonomy and how they interwove. Particularly notable is how it never directly names (political) events, yet the historical context is clear to the reader. In line with this, it also stays true to the POV's of each character. For example, von Tore never names the organisation of which he was a part but it is clear it was the Nazis, nor does he feel any regret for what he has done during his time in Germany (or after), as many do not; he remains convinced in his reality throughout the whole novel. In this way, the novel both avoids treating the readers like children and creates a sense of autenticity.

It is, in short, a novel that is written with a lot of intention and thoughtfulness about what it wants to say and it works very, very well. Every year, I have one "sleeper hit" of a book that I am not 100% convinced I'd like but then becomes one of the best I have read in the year. This might just be this year's.

Orpheus Builds a Girl

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