Publisher's Weekly Review
Schweblin (Fever Dream) once again deploys a heavy dose of nightmare fuel in this frightening, addictive collection. In "Headlights," Felicity, a just-married woman whose husband has abandoned her by the side of the road, hears and senses an approaching swarm of jilted women in the pitch black fields around her ("The laughter is closer now; it completely drowns out the crying"). "Preserves" is about a married couple expecting their first child and deciding to alter nature's course. In the title story, two parents try to figure out what to do about their young daughter, who has started eating live birds. In "Underground," the children in a small mining town dig a massive hole and suddenly disappear, and when their parents go looking for them, they find the hole filled in-and empty when they dig it up again. "The Heavy Suitcase of Benavides" follows a man who thinks that he has killed his wife and stuffed her in a suitcase. When he visits his doctor to confess, his doctor responds to the news unexpectedly, leading to a startling ending. Schweblin has a knack for leaving things unsaid: by zeroing in on her characters and settings to an uncomfortably close degree and only hinting at what's at the edges of the perspective, she achieves a constant sense of dread. Schweblin's stories are canny, provocative, and profoundly unsettling. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A dark and dreamy collection by Schweblin (Fever Dream, 2017), like an eerie walk through a perpetual twilight of uneasyand often absurdly funnystates of consciousness and being.In these 20 swiftly running stories, unimpeachably translated from Spanish by McDowell, Schweblin explores the slippery terrain of the mind's deeper recesses, where anxieties over the limits, or lack thereof, of the possible multiply and mutate. The collection's trenchant first story, "Headlights," begins with a bride realizing she's been abandoned on the side of a highway by her new husband after stopping for a bathroom break, ostensibly because she took too long and "waiting wears [men] out." Here she encounters a field full of jilted, wailing, and vengeful fellow brides in a witty examination of gender allegiances and competition, and dependency and tolerance in romantic relationships. "Preserves" introduces a pregnant woman and her husband who are both unprepared for the rigors of parenthood; they take drastic measures to eliminate the pregnancy but somehow preserve their would-be daughter for when they're ready. In the title story, the limitlessness and obligations of parental love are put to the test by a teenage daughter's curious appetites. And in "Toward a Happy Civilization," in a clever dilation of the idea of never being content where one is, an office worker from the capital plots his escape from the countryside, where he's being held captive by a train station attendant and his wife, who cooks wholesome meals and assigns daily tasks of vigorous outdoor labor to the man and their other office-worker detainees. Though some stories are more desultory than others and may not entirely satisfy, at her best, Schweblin builds dense and uncanny worlds, probing the psychology of human relationships and the ways we perceive existence and interpret culture, with dark humor and sharp teeth.An assemblage of both gauzy and substantial stories from an unquestionably imaginative author. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Schweblin's intense collection, following her absorbing novel, Fever Dream (2017), blends the everyday and the surreal, exploring internal currents, domesticity, and human connection. Her narrators bring the different perspectives of age and gender. In the memorable title tale, a father is shocked to discover that his daughter consumes small birds. Things grow more complicated when she abruptly moves in, forcing him to fully confront this unusual behavior. In My Brother Walter, a brother's depression is a source of good fortune for surrounding family and friends. Santa Claus Sleeps in the House follows the breakdown of a husband and wife through the eyes of their child. Other stories explore the various twists in characters' lives and the peculiar worlds they inhabit. Heads of Concrete portrays a successful painter who finds inspiration in a macabre method. An unexpected encounter in The Merman induces a woman to briefly question the path of and fragmented relationships in her life. These 20 tales have a visceral effect as Schweblin navigates the extremes of her characters' actions and thoughts, both healing and destructive.--Leah Strauss Copyright 2018 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Before Schweblin's debut novel, Fever Dreams, was short-listed for the Man Booker International Prize, the Buenos Aires-born, Berlin-based author was grabbing honors like the Juan Rulfo Story Prize for her short stories. Here's a collection that reveals why. Take the first story, "Headlights," about brides abandoned on a highway by their new husbands when they get out to use the bathroom. There are hundreds of forlorn brides at this spot, including a nasty older woman impatient with their moaning; the atmosphere is nightmarish, and the ending is a slug in the gut. In other stories, a father bemoans a daughter who has taken to eating live birds, a teenager with a temper grows up to become an esteemed painter of heads being smashed into concrete, and a vacationer who's rented a remote shore house finds a man who insists he's been hired to dig a hole in the yard. Women's subjugation, our insatiable (perhaps bestial) urges, art as mediation, how little we control-Schweblin ponders weighty issues while spooking her readers. VERDICT Surreal, disturbing, and decidedly original, these pieces aren't easy reading but will enthrall literati and sophisticated readers of fantasy and horror. [See Prepub Alert 7/16/18.] © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
