Megan McDowell

Mariana Enríquez

Pablo Gerardo Camacho

A Novel

Our Share of Night

Nuestra parte de noche

Premio Herralde 201900Un padre y un hijo atraviesan Argentina por carretera, desde Buenos Aires hacia las cataratas de Iguazú, en la frontera norte con Brasil. Son los años de la junta militar, hay controles de soldados armados y tensión en el ambiente. El hijo se llama Gaspar y el padre trata de protegerlo del destino que le ha sido asignado. La madre murió en circunstancias poco claras, en un accidente que acaso no lo fue. Como su padre, Gaspar está llamado a ser un médium en una sociedad secreta, la Orden, que contacta con la Oscuridad en busca de la vida eterna mediante atroces rituales. En ellos es vital disponer de un médium, pero el destino de estos seres dotados de poderes especiales es cruel, porque su desgaste físico y mental es rápido e implacable. Los orígenes de la Orden, regida por la poderosa familia de la madre de Gaspar, se remontan a siglos atrás, cuando el conocimiento de la Oscuridad llegó desde el corazón de África a Inglaterra y desde allí se extendió hasta Argentina. El lector encontrará en estas páginas casas cuyo interior muta; pasadizos que esconden monstruos inimaginables; rituales con fieros y extáticos sacrificios humanos; andanzas en el Londres psicodélico de los años sesenta, donde la madre de Gaspar conoció a un joven cantante de aire andrógino llamado David; párpados humanos convertidos en fetiches; enigmáticas liturgias sexuales; la relación entre padres e hijos, con la carga de una herencia atroz; y, de fondo, la represión de la dictadura militar, los desaparecidos y, más adelante, la incierta llegada de la democracia, los primeros brotes del sida en Buenos Aires... El terror sobrenatural se entrecruza con terrores muy reales en esta novela perturbadora y deslumbrante, que consagra a Mariana Enriquez como una escritora fundamental de las letras latinoamericanas del siglo XXI.

Karola

El amor es impuro, decía su hermana, pero Florence creía que el amor era inevitable y también podía ser dejado de lado. Ese era el signo de verdadera fortaleza. Dejar de lado el amor. 

 Y me contestó algo que de tan cierto a veces lo repito en voz alta. Es que no pasa nada después de esto, hija. Al día siguiente tenemos hambre y comemos, queremos estar al sol y nadamos, nos tenemos que afeitar, hay que atender a los contadores y visitar los campos porque queremos seguir teniendo dinero. Lo que pasa es real, pero la vida también.

Eso también es ser rico, pensé entonces: ese desprecio por lo precioso y la incapacidad de ofrecer la dignidad de nombrar. 

Jasper

If it was raining, he didn’t cross the park at a run. He liked the short, violent rains of Misiones, the rivers of red earth, the prelude to the hot, black night with its stars throbbing in the sky. A flash, silence, another flash, like an exhausted heart.

It’s one thing to be the black sheep. You’re the black sheep, the prodigal son, the family’s shame. You could conform. All I can do is rebel. My dad could only rebel. Nonconformity is only possible for those who are not slaves. Everyone else has to fight.

and they’d hug, proclaim their love for each other, just like that, I love you, fucking Negro, and Gaspar felt he couldn’t ascend to that level with them. He’d said as much to Isabel. It’s like we’re all going up a flight of stairs together and at a certain point I say “this is as far as I go.” And on that step, higher up, they’re all happy and I watch them from below. Had he always been like that? It wasn’t shyness or reserve or adolescence, as other people thought. He wasn’t going to get over it. He could dance when he was alone, he could get emotional in his room with a book, but when the party started he disconnected, the others turned into a movie that he could watch but not participate in. So he acted like he was invisible, which wasn’t hard when everyone was drunk. And he withdrew into his room, where he felt the purest kind of relief.

'You’re going to drive our son away from us, and you call that love.'

'Of course. Or is it love to steal his body?'

There is no arguing with faith, though. And it’s impossible to disbelieve when the Darkness comes. So, we trust, and we go on. At least, many of us do. Others are sick with doubt.

I want to drain your entrails with kisses

For I am a pitch-black toad with two wings.

Gods always behave like the people who make them.

Dreams where Gaspar got up from the mattress, his father already dead, already ashes on the bed, and went to the kitchen and slit his own throat with a knife, blood pouring out, drenching the walls, his pants, his face, his hands, until everything he saw was red and he could let himself die once and for all. He, too, could have black eyes.

Will I be remembered as the man who found the medium and saved him more than once? Will they write about me, will my name be uttered in admiration? I must not think of my glory. Let it be secret if it must. I will stop pleading for compassion. There are no words from this world for the entrance into the Darkness, no words for the last bite.

My mother once told me that your power was as great as your irresponsibility. I’ll be with you forever. As long as you don’t push me away, I’m with you.

It was the illness, he’d explained to her later. Each thing he did was a negotiation, a calculation. As if he were tasked with carrying and caring for a delicate crystal treasure that he could never set aside, not even in a safe place, and that had to be moved gingerly so as not to damage or break it. He had to think out every movement in advance, always tiptoeing, always wondering if this jolt would bring the disaster, the final break.

I love books that add real historical events into the story, makes it more real. A great writing job. 

Ani Velasquez

Rocío de la Hera

Ok. No sé. Una bestialidad. Terror, horror, asco, violencia y sin embargo momentos luminosos, destellos. Una historia de amores marcados por la oscuridad absoluta. Y además: qué bien escrito, novelon, no podés dejar de leer. Te amo, Mariana , no puede ser.

It has been a couple of days but I am still speechless from this whole experience of a book. This novel is just so layered and dense, I really regret not having a personal physical copy of it to pour through and actually annotate against.

I am sure a lot of the subtleties of the representation of Argentinian history might have gone over my head - the story is so seeped in it - but Enríquez's writing is so captivating and clear that even someone not very familiar with it, like myself, could not help but entirely invested in the story. Of course, the strong plot of the novel, that would be able to stand even on its own, had an even bigger hold of me throughout what is, by all means, a pretty lengthy book.

All of this to say that the message I will take away from this book is about trauma (social, generational, individual) and the importance of tenderness and love for one another in order to get through it and break the cycle. Understanding one another is difficult and in our quest to save each other, to keep each other away from evil, we may hurt one another; but the love is still there.

In so many ways, this novel also reminded me of "Wuthering Heights" - maybe because it is still fresh on my mind, maybe because the central themes of both are there. But maybe it is also intentional - certain passages bear strong ressemblance. But "Our Share of Night" is also so much more than this to me - I would have loved it whether it had referenced "Wuthering Heights" or not, whether it reminded me of it or not. Enríquez has such excellent command of her prose, of symbolism and narration, you sort of have to be in awe when the dots connect and align perfectly.

The novel is not flawless (for example, I thought the last section - from Gaspar leaving Buenos Aires until the end - was rushed; I also found some of the way Gaspar and his friends talked about queerness and women distatestful, though they probably reflected the attitudes and language at the time). But all of this to say I will be thinking about this novel for a long time and I will hurry to get myself a paperback edition, once I am back from holiday, to begin rereading and annotating and picking this apart.

It has been a couple of days but I am still speechless from this whole experience of a book. This novel is just so layered and dense, I really regret not having a personal physical copy of it to pour through and actually annotate against.

I am sure a lot of the subtleties of the representation of Argentinian history might have gone over my head - the story is so seeped in it - but Enríquez's writing is so captivating and clear that even someone not very familiar with it, like myself, could not help but entirely invested in the story. Of course, the strong plot of the novel, that would be able to stand even on its own, had an even bigger hold of me throughout what is, by all means, a pretty lengthy book.

All of this to say that the message I will take away from this book is about trauma (social, generational, individual) and the importance of tenderness and love for one another in order to get through it and break the cycle. Understanding one another is difficult and in our quest to save each other, to keep each other away from evil, we may hurt one another; but the love is still there.

In so many ways, this novel also reminded me of "Wuthering Heights" - maybe because it is still fresh on my mind, maybe because the central themes of both are there. But maybe it is also intentional - certain passages bear strong ressemblance. But "Our Share of Night" is also so much more than this to me - I would have loved it whether it had referenced "Wuthering Heights" or not, whether it reminded me of it or not. Enríquez has such excellent command of her prose, of symbolism and narration, you sort of have to be in awe when the dots connect and align perfectly.

The novel is not flawless (for example, I thought the last section - from Gaspar leaving Buenos Aires until the end - was rushed; I also found some of the way Gaspar and his friends talked about queerness and women distatestful, though they probably reflected the attitudes and language at the time). But all of this to say I will be thinking about this novel for a long time and I will hurry to get myself a paperback edition, once I am back from holiday, to begin rereading and annotating and picking this apart.

(5/5) tengo la sensación de qué, aunque quisiera, nunca lograría poder poner en palabras lo que este libro ha generado en mi, y la increíble lectura que es, pues es necesario experimentarlo de primera mano para llegar a comprender la belleza de esta historia. aún así, voy a hacer un intento por plasmar acá, humildemente, lo que me sea posible.

primero que nada quiero dejar en claro que, a pesar de ser etiquetado como tal, nuestra parte de noche no es una lectura que se centre únicamente en el terror o en generar miedo, y son pocas, aunque muy efectivas, las escenas que te despiertan escalofríos. creo que su mejor característica, y algo que quienes hayan leído los cuentos de Mariana van a confirmar, es que su terror, aunque mezclado con sucesos fantásticos muchas veces, es un terror mundano, de todos los días, y logra impactar tanto porque en el momento en que comenzamos a leer sentimos que todo lo que nos cuenta es posible, más que nada, porque se entremezcla muchísimo con los horrores que vivimos día a día, tanto que la línea entre realidad y ficción se emborrona por completo. 

eso es algo muchísimo más palpable en esta novela, gracias a la mezcla de los horrores de las vivencias de la dictadura militar junto con los de su propia invención, la orden, seguidores acérrimos de la oscuridad. me fascinó profundamente su manera de narrar esos años de violencia y poder mezclarlos con la trama sin que se sienta como una intrusión, porque son temas que normalmente no suelen incluirse en historias de ficción y acá, además de tener un papel importantísimo para la trama, es claro que Enríquez busca darle luz y voz a una época terrible, y dejar en claro, además de condenar, todas las violencias vivídas. pero no solo la dictadura tiene un papel importante en la obra, sino también crisis económicas y sociales ocurridas en la Argentina de esos años, y cada una de ellas la aborda de manera tan espléndida que incluso sin ser de dicho país te hace sentir interpelado.

de la trama en general no quiero hablar demasiado, porque considero que lo mejor es entrar sabiendo lo menos posible. en primera instancia nos encontramos con un padre y su hijo, Juan y Gaspar, que atraviesan la Argentina por carretera en medio de los años de dictadura. Juan, médium de una sociedad secreta y bien acomodada conocida como La Órden, busca proteger a su hijo a quien se le ha concedido la dudosa bendición de compartir dichos poderes, mientras su cuerpo profundamente desgastado tanto por una enfermedad cardíaca como por las poderosas invocaciones y rituales a los que es sometido se va apagando a una velocidad inquietante. a lo largo de la historia, gracias a saltos de tiempo y narrador, vamos acompañando la vida de ambos y adentrándonos más y más en la profunda oscuridad de La Órden, retorcida y brutal. me parece exquisita la manera en que Enríquez mezcla creencias propias de la Argentina junto con sus propias invenciones, y es tan magníficamente brutal y despiadada que muchas veces durante la lectura sentí nauseas ante lo narrado.

por fin, lo que a mi parecer es uno de sus puntos más altos: los personajes. todos a quienes conocemos en la historia, incluso sin ser principales, tienen una profundidad psicológica increíble, no son inherentemente buenos o malos, sino que tienen conflictos internos profundos, que se ven incrementados por el ambiente de violencia y crueldad en el que están inmersos. es imposible no sentirte conflictuada por sus acciones y comportamientos, y aún así, poder llegar a comprenderlos. son personajes tan humanos, tan imperfectos, que logran llegarte al alma y sensibilizarte aún sin quererlo, lo cual me parece completamente admirable. estoy segura de que voy a acordarme de estos personajes con cariño (y rabia) por mucho, mucho tiempo. 
creo que los distintos narradores a lo largo de la historia son, además, un acierto, porque no solo dotan a la historia de un dinamismo especial, sino que ayudan a ver estas distintas caras en cada uno de ellos, al narrar sus acciones por medio de los ojos de otros.

en general, es un libro que realmente les recomiendo que lean, sobre todo si son fanáticos, como yo, de la literatura que logra mezclar ficción y realidad de una manera que te deja cuestionándote qué es real y que no. no los va a decepcionar.

Creepy and thrilling but struggled at the end to finish it as the story ran off track a bit and took a while to regain its traction. Enjoyed the very end but was it missing some details?

Poppy Keogh

Yaffa

Okay. Arguably the best horror novel i've ever read so far. Latin American literature is quickly becoming my favorite. Enriquez managed to pour so many tropes and genres into this monster of a book; Father and son, generational, coming of age, dark academia, myths and legends, cult horror, queer, Argentinian history, and with it, anti-colonialism and anti-fascism; and it freaking worked seamlessly. I was glad it took me a long time to finish it, because to be immersed into this bleak world, you really have to let each chapter in and drown you ruthlessly. It's dark, yet so beautiful. Sometimes it relies too much on over-exposition each time the plot moves forward, but i'm not complaining too much, because with those passages comes the delicious twists and reveals. Finishing a chapter always felt like completing a puzzle. The ending is satisfying, specifically THAT part, but it also leaves so much room for more (please i need more). It will be hard for me to walk away from the world this book has dragged me into.

mic shulman

hmm probably 1 of the best books i’ve ever read

“We have children so we can continue, they are our immortality.”

A young father and son set out on a road trip, devastated by the death of the wife and mother they both loved. United in grief, the pair travels to her family home, where they must confront the terrifying legacy she has bequeathed. The woman they grieve came from a clan like no other—a centuries-old secret society called the Order that commits unspeakable acts in search of eternal life. For Gaspar, the son, this vampiric cult is his destiny.

Now Gaspar is in danger. As the Order tries to possess him, father and son take flight, yet nothing will stop the Order for nothing is beyond them. Hunted by evil and surrounded by horror, Gaspar and his father attempt to outrun a powerful family that will do anything to ensure its own survival. But can any of us escape the fate that awaits us?

This one’s going to stick with me for a while. I’ll come back for a better review, but initial thoughts: haunting, vivid, stunning. Both disturbingly historical and magically surreal. A bit wandering at times, but it held me captive and felt worth the length in my opinion. 

Emiley Jones

This is certainly a good book, and a monumental achievement in historical horror. But I was not in the mood for something this joyless or ponderously long

Boothby

Ok I get why this is neo-gothic, creatively political, capital “L” literature. I get why it’ll be taught in universities. I’ll likely even think about the medium for years to come. But it just wasn't worth the 600 pages to me!

Amelia Hruby

Antonia Folch

Jorge Cobian Cruz

Me resuena mucho este fragmento de poesía de Neruda que encontré en el libro: «y por las calles la sangre de los niños / corría simplemente, como sangre de niños». Revela lo que es en esencia el ansia de poder y de inmortalidad.

Tiago Dias

One of the best books I've read this year. Intense and extremely engaging. Horror writing at its best.

Our Share of Night A Novel

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