The novel continues on a relentless trajectory of endless sentences-some last more than thirty pages-and it makes the reader feel out of breath and like you can’t put the book down because there is no natural stop and you really, actually, very much want to put the book down because there is a lot of vile shit that’s happening, oh and everyone’s using words like ‘cunt’ and ‘fuck’ and perhaps you shouldn’t read this in bed next to a partner who is sleeping sweetly because there was that one moment where you uttered ‘fuck’ and he stirred, and then you knew you had to put the book down for the night, but those weird dreams started coming so you had to turn the light on again, especially toward the end of the book when it all devolves more and the actions that lead to the death of the witch-a character you somehow know less about at the end of the book than the beginning-start making you feel sick, particularly Norma’s chapter, but then it gets even worse in Brando’s, of course a dog is brought into it, and then the grime starts to suffocate you even when you’re not reading it and perhaps this isn’t a healthy book, but my god it’s a thing of beauty. It is a warning that might just as well appear on the cover of Hurricane Season, the second novel by Mexican author Fernanda Melchor, and the first to be. That’s one of the book’s shortest sentences. In her impressive new novel, Hurricane Season, the Mexican writer Fernanda Melchor investigates the deep complicity between fairy tale and femicide, a term adopted by Mexican feminists.
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