Tuesday, March 28, 2023

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez (Translated by Megan McDowell)

 


Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on February 7, 2023 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

Our Share of Night is a novel from acclaimed Argentine author Mariana Enriquez, and is apparently (per the publisher statement that comes with the novel) her first novel to be translated into American English, even as her earlier novels were well acclaimed internationally. The novel is a 600 page historical fantasy horror novel, taking place largely in Argentina and Britain from the 1960s through the 1990s, and deals heavily with the Argentine politics of the time, as the nation struggles with a dictatorship, than a struggling democracy, and political and economic crises during and thereafter. Of course these historical events are often in the background (but well present) as the novel deals largely with a father and son who are involved with a Cult dedicated to a Supernatural Darkness that consumes, marks and sacrifices in exchange for cryptic messages about immortality - a cult led by a trio of rich loaded and politically connected families with little concern for who they destroy along the way.

The result is a fascinating novel which at times feels overwritten - with excessively long paragraphs and long passages without interruption - that somehow still is enthralling, as the story takes place in six parts that jump forward and backwards in time and perspective to reveal what is happening and what has already happened. So we get large parts taking place from the perspectives of the father Juan and mother Rosario in which they reveal their actions within the cult and their connections to the supernatural but also two large parts taking place from the perspective of their son Gaspar, who is ignorant of what dark magic his parents are/were a part of and why his father is acting strange and occasionally violent, and just trying to grow up and live his own life with his three friends. There's some strong themes here of class, of family, and some horrifying moments to go along with it, although I do think the novel falters a bit in the end when it all has to come together ridiculously quickly.

TRIGGER WARNING: Child Abuse, Rape off page, Torture off page, Mass Murder, and Mental Illness. One part deals heavily with trauma and how different people experience it, etc. Nothing done gratuitously, but serious topics are of issue in this book.
--------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------
1981 Argentina is a country gripped in a dictatorship that maintains a terrifying grip on power. In the midst of this, a sick man Juan, and his son Gaspar, makes a trip by car through the countryside, taking care not to run into Government forces. But Juan is no ordinary man, he is the medium for the supernatural monstrous power known as the Darkness, a power which is worshipped by the secret Order known as the Cult of the Shadow. Juan not only can summon the Darkness, which consumes and marks those too close all the while whispering mad secrets to others, but can see echoes of the dead and conjure demons to provide him with answers. But his beloved wife Rosario is dead and Juan cannot see her and Juan knows this must be the work of others in the Order, such as Rosario's monstrous mother Mercedes, who wish to use Gaspar as Juan's heir....or worse. To Juan's dismay, Gaspar does indeed show signs of having inherited his powers....but Juan is resolved to under no circumstances allow the Order to get their hands on Gaspar and he will do anything - no matter how monstrous or dangerous - to keep him safe.

Four years later, in 1985, Argentina is seemingly in a better place, with a newfound democracy emerging in place of the old terrorizing Dictatorship. In this new world Gaspar grows up in Buenos Aires in a house with his father, who acts strange and sometimes cruelly, along with his three friends Pablo, Vicky, and Adela, with whom he grows up and goes to school. But the Argentina in which they are growing up still holds many dangers, and for Gaspar and his friends, those dangers are not just fallout from political crackdowns, but Juan's erratic dangerous behavior and the strange things they occasionally sense around their neighborhood of the city. Strange things that seem to be coming from a mysterious abandoned house that no one seems brave enough to enter......
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I've described Our Share of Night's plot by describing the setup of two of the book's more significant parts, but the above plot summary is a bit misleading - the book is not so simple or linear in its presentation. The book is divided into six parts, although two are pretty short and are rather more like interludes than full parts, with each part taking place in a different time period and place, often involving characters mentioned in a prior part but not focused upon for various reasons (like, for example, being dead). The shift from one part to another might result in a jumping forward or back in time, and several of these parts are told in third person from multiple perspectives (while one part is told in first person by a single narrator), even if a part may have a more central character around whom things revolve. The book also - and some of this may be the formatting of my ARC but I don't think so - relies on long passages without paragraph breaks as events happen and things are experienced by their third person narrators, such that you might feel overwhelmed and exhausted reading it at times.

And yet largely, this style of writing works, as the story deals with its characters who grow and struggle with both fantasy elements and real political elements for reasons that the reader (and sometimes the characters) doesn't quite understand at first, but are slowly revealed as the book jumps back and forth in time...the book does a remarkable job bringing back moments from earlier to later such that it feels rewarding to see how things come together, even as the book never quite feels too much like a chore of a puzzle. This works even as the story's genre kind of changes from part to part - Part 1 focuses on Juan and is firmly in horror fantasy, as he deals with the cult that relies on his power and wants his son Gaspar, and revolves around Juan's knowledge of what's going on....but then our next major part, Part 3, is written largely from the perspectives of Gaspar and his three friends, all of whom are completely ignorant of the cult and its magic even as some of them have ties to it they're unaware of. That third part essentially serves as a coming of age story at times, as the quartet deals with their problems and ordinary lives - Gaspar with his confusing sometimes abusive father, Vicky with her fears, Adela with her struggles to be understood about her one arm, Pablo with his growing understanding that he's gay* in a world where that is more known but still highly discriminated against, etc. Of course the horrors behind the scenes do eventually play a part, but much of Gaspar's two major parts deal with ordinary life in a highly troubling and difficult time in Argentina, dealing with trauma, queerness, abuse, relations, and more, and these parts are written really well such that you hardly mind how long you have to wonder when the fantasy horror elements will come into play before they do. Similarly Juan's part works well, as does the spoiler protagonist of the book's fourth part whose first person perspective deals a lot with hubris and wealth amidst some absolute monsters of people (while itself being a bit of coming of age).

*Notably, the book is very queer at times - Juan is bi and has lovers of both sexes and no one of importance thinks anything about it, other characters involved with the cult are either trans or non-binary based upon descriptions, and the book deals heavily in its last act with the struggles of the gay community during AIDS in Argentina.

There's a lot of strong themes here, of both the struggles of living amidst dangerous and dark times of history and of things made clear through the fantasy elements as well, most notably themes of the monstrousness of the rich and aristocratic, such as the three families who form the backbone for the horrible cult that seeks immortality that centers large parts of the story - their connections to the dictatorship and other monsters and how they act towards family, towards those they and their allies colonize, and more are utterly evil and repulsive, which is exactly what the author is no doubt going for. And like I said above, it comes together really well, so that it's really enthralling. That said, the book kind of suffers from in my opinion a rather weak ending - the final part features the fantasy elements coming into play really late, after a long section without them, and that section is resolved insanely quickly, to the point where it feels like the payoff of the finale is not earned at all. But overall, this is a fascinating book and I'd really be interested to see what others think about it.
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