Hurricane Season

It took me legitimately five tries to start Hurricane Season, but once I finally got into it, god damn what a book. Author Fernanda Melchor, a native of Veracruz, Mexico, tells a vivid tale of Mexico — and rarely uses periods, which is perhaps why it took me so long to get into it at first (you need to really, really focus!). It’s at once a horror, a mystery, a tale of femicide, and a story of rural poverty.

The opening chapter begins with five boys, in a small town in Mexico, who stumble upon a dead body of a woman simply known as The Witch. From there, each chapter introduces a new character, giving us a chaotic narration but the more you read, the more makes sense. (And I won’t tell you much, because it’s best just to let the story unfold.) Here’s how George Henson describes it at World Literature Today, which I loved: “Melchor’s prose—careening sentences with shifting points of view that swerve in and out of registers and assault every sensibility—propels the reader forward, gaining ever-increasing momentum.” It’s almost like the book itself is a hurricane, sweeping you to a violent conclusion. Not that there isn’t violence throughout: It opens with a brutal murder, and each of the narrators have violent storylines filled with abuse, rape, drug addiction, sex work, and homophobic violence. (I found the narrative of the 13-year-old raped by her stepfather particularly challenging to get through, so, fair warning.) Yet, they all twisted and turned together, and you slowly work out the puzzle pieces of what happened to the Witch. I am in awe of the way Melchor crafted this story, and I hit a point about 2/3rds of the way through where I just could not stop reading. If you can stomach a brutal read, and want to read a critically acclaimed work in translation: This is for you.

Rating: ★★★★★