Mariana Enriquez

Hallowe’en Special:

Set in Buenos Aires, Enriquez continues the Latin American tradition of magical realism, heavily laced with dark horror. That macabre mood is set as the collection opens with an undead baby before going on to discuss themes including human trafficking, violence against women, depression and loneliness.

The horror comes through most strongly when exploring the toxicity of social media and the obsession with celebrity culture, similar to that previously discussed in the short fiction of George Saunders.

The revenant baby ‘Angelita’ is a rotten-fleshed corpse which shadows the protagonist as a metaphor for regret and yearning for the past. ‘The Cart’ provides another good slice of magical realism as the mistreatment of a homeless man brings misfortune down upon a neighbourhood that is similar in a plot reminiscent of Bachman/King’s Thinner, with stomach-churning imagery similar to that of Bora Chung’s ‘Cursed Bunny’ collection.

With one foot in the horror camp. ‘Our Lady’, is about a group of pretty girls, consumed with jealousy over a Plain Jane whose strong personality has beaten them to the object of their desire, are able to satiate their wrath by summoning demons to exact Carrie-esque revenge, while firmly in the horror genre, the highly disturbing ‘Meat’, involving cannibalism, reveals to us how far a pair of devotees will go to become one with the singer they adore.