Samanta Schweblin

"Originally published in Spanish in 2010 as Pâajaros en la boca by Random House Mondadori."

Stories

Mouthful of Birds

Lindy

Volume highlights: "Headlights," "Toward Happy Civilization," "On the Steppe," and "The Heavy Suitcase of Benavides"

completely unhinged. written (translated?) in a way that seems uninspiring at first but that lures you in entirely. there isn’t a story I disliked! though I did sometimes find the withholding of closure frustrating & would have liked more development re: certain plot points

Rachael Schafer

I loved every single piece in this book. After reading each story I thought, “There is no other story in here that can top it,” and then Schweblin kept giving me beautifully written and haunting stories. I couldn’t put it down.

Hellboy TCR

Almost a 3.5 star coz of the good ones. Overall its a mixed bag with stories written in different stages of Samanta's writing career - it shows. Detailed review later.

"Superb" -- Vogue "What makes Schweblin so startling as a writer, however, what makes her rare and important, is that she is impelled not by mere talent or ambition but by vision." -- New York Times A powerful, eerily unsettling story collection from a major international literary star. The brilliant stories in Mouthful of Birds burrow their way into your psyche and don't let go. Samanta Schweblin haunts and mesmerizes in this extraordinary collection featuring women on the edge, men turned upside down, the natural world at odds with reality. We think life is one way, but often, it's not -- our expectations for how people act, love, fear can all be upended. Each character in Mouthful of Birds must contend with the unexpected, whether a family coming apart at the seams or a child transforming or a ghostly hellscape or a murder. Schweblin's stories have the feel of a sleepless night, where every shadow and bump in the dark take on huge implications, leaving your pulse racing, and the line between the real and the strange blurs.

Kaitee Tredway

Moray Lyle McIntosh

I loved the nightmarish unreality of Fever Dream. Schweblin’s writing perfectly captured the horror of the hallucinogenic state, when the senses cannot be trusted and everyday rules seem to reformulate in disturbing ways.

This technique is replicated in many of the stories in Mouthful of Birds but to far less effect. The unexpected penetration of the nightmarish and unearthly into the everyday is a feature of each. The reaction; or rather the lack of reaction from the characters and their prosaic acceptance of the disturbing things happening around them is reminiscent of the logic that allows anything to be acceptable within a dream. But after a while this sense of apathy, instead of inducing unease, bleeds over to the reader so that the stories pass through you without leaving a mark. 
The waning of the writing’s power is partly because it creates a mood so similar across the different stories that they become largely indistinguishable and difficult to judge on their individual merits. The characters and their internal narratives are noticeably similar and failed to define them as separate entities.

Ultimately, there is a surprising lack of range that becomes clears as you read through the stories. Each uses similar techniques to create a momentary chill and disturbance but the repetition blunts the effect and makes the collection disappointingly unmemorable.

Jordan Robinson

I enjoyed only a handful of the stories. It felt as though most of the stories went over my head with the symbolism / themes or deeper meanings. 
However, the stories I connected with were great.

Jales

not sure how i should feel about it but i didn't

Deborah Kerr

Some of these stories left me breathless, some left me questioning my own thought processes, and some I have already forgotten.

These are dark stories that bring the essence of what it is to be human to the fore while making you want to never interact with another person ever again.

Leafling

3.5

A few really great stories. I'd 100% recommend her novel, Fever Dream, but I don't feel fully comfortable recommending this entire collection.

Cass Fox

hat carter

Shortlisted for the Premio Valle Inclán, 2020 Nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award, 2019 A SPELLBINDING COLLECTION OF STORIES FROM A MAJOR INTERNATIONAL LITERARY STAR The crunch of a bird's wing. A cloud of butterflies, so beautiful it smothers. A crimson flash of blood across an artist's canvas. Spine-tingling and unexpected, unearthly and strange, the stories of Mouthful of Birds are impossible to forget. Samanta Schweblin's writing expertly blurs the line between the surreal and the everyday, pulling the reader into a world that is at once nightmarish and beautiful. An exhilarating tour de force guaranteed to leave the pulse racing.

Mouthful of Birds Stories

Reviews