“You will be a tiny volcano prettier than three thirsty dogs curtsying and / swapping advice on how to grow wheat in mothballed pianos.” – César Moro, “VISION OF MOTH-EATEN PIANOS FALLING TO RUIN”
No, these aren’t all magical realism. Some are surrealist, some are horror. None count as Weird Fiction. There is something about these books, though, that is stranger that most books. It’s not all related to “Central and South America are different places with different cultures than North America,” either, because some of these writers are U.S.-born. One even lives in Canada. They don’t all have the same strangeness, either. The vibes are what I like, though. October’s just around the corner—pick up one of these before spooky season and knock yr orbit off-kilter a little bit.
49 VENEZUELAN NOVELS by Sebastian Castillo
The secret is that they’re all prose poems. It’s been awhile since I’ve read this strange little chapbook, but it definitely left an impression. Pick it up if you can find it.
THE HOUSE OF PAPER by Carlos María Domínguez
Another where it’s been forever since I read it. Definitely was also drinking pretty heavily when I read it. What I remember is that dude’s house has too many books, or is made of books? It is a short novel that is in love with the idea of a home library, unhealthily so, which I can wholeheartedly relate to.
PEDRO PÁRAMO by Juan Rulfo
What’s more of a hook, that it’s a strange ghost story that makes you feel haunted as you’re reading it, or that Gabriel García Márquez read it in one night, immediately read it again, and then knew how to write 100 Years Of Solitude? Anyone with eyes to read and ears to hear owes a debt to this book, and this book lives up to the hype, too. You think you’ve heard of ghost towns. Go back to Scooby and the Mystery Gang. This novel is a ghost town.
THE AUTUMN OF THE PATRIARCH by Gabriel García Márquez
It’s been years since I’ve read it, but this novel has never left my thoughts. I wanna say there are six chapters, which means there are six, maaaaybe eight sentences in the whole book. You read that right. Gabo is such a poet-novelist, too, that it all flows immaculately. Besides the astonishing stylistic achievement, the portrait of a dictator/tyrant/authoritarian as a lonely sad piece of shit who’s dead (each section begins with people finding him dead) was prescient. I mean, didn’t stop the rise of fascism in the United States, me reading The Autumn Of The Patriarch in 2011 and understanding tyrants as dangerously lonely dickheads. But still.
LABYRINTHS by Jose Luis Borges
Hate to be this guy, but there’s really nothing to say to get you to read Borges except say “read Borges.” He’s singular. I’ve cracked this book open probably four times without going cover-to-cover and without truly understanding things. But something was opened up to me. Something sure as hell seared across my brain like panther claws.
THE EQUESTRIAN TURTLE AND OTHER POEMS by César Moro
Surreal, overflowing with astonishing imagery, dense lines, just really the kind of poetry you want to read. At the end, you get a bunch of letters César wrote to his sometime lover, a Mexican army officer named Antonio. Our guy César is absolutely down bad, and Antonio is not nearly as interested. It’s an amazing contrast.
THE PEOPLE OF PAPER by Salvador Plascencia
A fun, strange novel that I read in grad school and still barely understood. It’s still around, though, because I want another crack at it. There’s a touch of early aughts McSweeney’s here, a touch of Ben Marcus. It’s wildly unique. Maybe read it in a group.
SEASON OF THE SWAMP by Yuri Herrera
A fictionalized account of Benito Juárez’s exile in New Orleans. Eventually, Juárez becomes the first Indigenous head of state in the post-Columbian Americas. Right now, he’s just wandering New Orleans with his homie. He’s already a revolutionary, sure, but he’s absolutely a young stranger in a strange land. This novel contains maybe my favorite passage ever on indolence, when a (white) patron of a restaurant has a feather fall on his jacket sleeve: “The waiter whipped out a handkerchief and removed the feather. And that too was a horror: what have we lost when you can’t shake off your own jacket or wash a single dish, when comfort is your only concern. What are we willing to ignore, or let atrophy, for the right to indolence. What a monstrous thing, comfort.”
CANDELARIA by Melissa Lozada-Oliva
A Guatemalan grandmother survives an apocalypse? Sisters who can’t get along? Generational trauma? Sign me up. Longtime readers will know I love Melissa’s novel in verse, Dreaming Of You. I was not as enthusiastic about this novel, partially because I read it on the heels of another super hyped post-apocalyptic novel, and those two books told me I personally needed a break from post-apocalypse. Melissa is a great enough writer for me to give this a second chance one day, though. I will also tell you, dear reader, that is an objectively good book, and you should read it.
MEXICAN GOTHIC by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
A dazzling novel that deserved all the attention it got. I am pretty sure I am re-reading it next year, and am so so excited. What makes this strange is the ending. At least, I personally didn’t see it coming, the first time I read it. Not a major twist, nothing too too wild for horror fans, but unexpected after marinating in all that Gothic text for so long. Maybe when I re-read, I’ll be like “you idiot, of course you should’ve seen this coming. Obviously is a metaphor for decay, which is super Gothic.” Then again, maybe Gothic literature in general is strange enough to merit inclusion here, anyway.
JULIÁN MARTINEZ’S FORTHCOMING BOOK OF SHORT FICTION AND A NOVELLA ON FUTURE TENSE BOOKS
Ok, this one doesn’t have a cover image. I can’t find the title anywhere. The announcement has been made, though—Julián told everyone about it at the Lazy & Entitled reading this summer, and there’s an adorable Facebook video out there. Still, I’ve seen Julián read enough times to know that this book will be full of what I’m talking about. Julián’s great enough to merit a preorder, so watch this space (at the link, not my blog).
Sorry you got an email,
Chris