Fernanda Melchor - Hurricane Season (Fitzcarraldo, 2023) ****½

Two years ago, I read "Paradais" by Mexican author Fernanda Melchor and I really liked it. So I was more than happy when the English translation of "Hurricane Season" was published. Again with thanks to publishing company Fitzcarraldo for investing in the translation of great non-English literature. 

Somewhere in a Mexican town, the dead body of the Witch is found in a ditch. The novel gives us the various perspectives of all the main characters in the context of this event, in a wonderful and lyrical kaleidoscope of views and experiences. 

The novel starts with a long 'monologue intérieur' by a kind of non-participating observer, whose long and ranting sentences betray a strong moral judgment and emotional connection to the murdered Witch. Because of its impersonal approach, this introduction may be somewhat off-putting, but then the story opens up gradually, by adding the direct experiences of the characters who orbit around the Witch: Yesenia, her cousion and good-for nothing Luismi, who left the Witch's home the morning her body was found together with his stepfather Munra; his friend Brando, tormented by secret lust; and Lusimi's lover, Norma, a 13-year-old runaway carrying her stepfather’s baby.

Life in the village is one of extreme poverty, alcohol and drug abuse, violence, sexual abuse, theft and total disrespect for other people. It is a life of survival and other people only exist for the characters' personal gratification and utility. The story was actually based on true events, and the intention was to write a non-fiction investigation of the murder, but Melchor soon realised that her presence to dig up the details of the murder could be highly dangerous, thus resorting a more fictitious approach of the event. 

Despite the squalour of life in the village, Melchor manages to create a lot of empathy even for the vilest of the people in her narrative. They are the victims of a situation for which they are not responsible: they are poor, uneducated, ignorant and they often make the wrong decisions, choosing immediate gratification over longer term solutions. Everyone is evil and nobody is. And her writing style is so direct and colloquial that it drives the action forward as if you were part of it all. You can also appreciate the work of the translator to keep language like this one close to its original: 

"Got to keep your wits about you in this world, she pontificated. You-drop your guard for a second and they'll crush you, Clarita, so you better just tell that fuckwit out there to buy you some clothes. Don't you be anyone's fool, that's what men are like: a bunch of lazy spongers who you have to keep rounding up to squeeze any use out of them, and that kid's no different; either you tell the little shit what's what or he'll spend all the money on drugs, and before you know it you're the cunt providing for him, Clarita. I'm telling you because I know the little prick, I know him and his tricks alright... I pushed him out! So don't you go losing your head on me, you hear? You've gotta tell him, you tell him to buy you clothes, give you spending money and take you out in Villa, you've gotta keep men like that on a tight leash, keep them busy to stop them coming out with all their shit. Norma nodded, but she had to raise a hand to her mouth to hide her smile when Chabela stopped talking for a second and the pair of them heard thundering snores coming from the man sleeping in the living room. Fucking Clarita, I see you pissing yourself laughing, you silly bitch, Chabela said, although she was also smiling, baring her big yellow teeth." (p.109)

There is beauty in this. That Melchor's magic. 

Fernanda Melchior - Paradais (Fitzcarraldo, 2022) ****

One more success novel published by Fitzcarraldo, and their blue covers come as a quality label for good literature. 

"Paradais" by Fernanda Melchior clearly fits in this list. It is the story of two boys, one rich and one poor. The former, Franco or Fatboy, lives in a luxury gated compound with shared swimming pool, and is very much in love with the wife of the neighbours, and the latter, Polo, is the pool boy and gardener's assistant. Both live in completely different worlds, but they share the adolescent's anger, uncertainty, lust and black-and-white vision of the world. They want to move forward, have their endeavours rewarded, to be taken seriously, to be men, to be recognised, to do meaningful things. In their free time, they make schemes to achieve their material goals: sex and money, inspired by the alcohol they steal from Fatboy's family. 

Fernanda Melchior deals with her story brilliantly. Because you can anticipate how it is going to end, like any Greek tragedy, but still the story is captivating, and despite the evil intents, despite the foul language and brutal fantasies of the two boys, you empathise with them, with their situation, their rejection, and you want them somehow to succeed, even if you know that's impossible, and even if you know that it would be morally rejectable. 

She writes like the boys testoron rages through their bodies, full of energy, with no pause, with no moment of relief, just the endless need to move the narrative forward through intense dialogues, raging interior monologues complaining about the cruelty of other people and the world, and fantasies, dreams and more fantasies. 

Judge for yourself: 

"That was the kind of grief Polo woke up to each day, before the sun had even appeared at the window, just as the neighbour's cockerel was clearing its throat to com­ pete with his mother's phone alarm. Polo would grumble and toss and turn on the floor, on the sweat-soaked petate, his mouth dry, his eyes glued together with sleep and his temples throbbing with the headache that now never went away, no matter how many Alka-Seltzers he drank. He would aim to get up and out as early as he could - Lord knows he tried to avoid his mother's sermons - but she al­ ways got their first, when he was still on the floor battling his exhaustion, and she would launch straight in: wasn't he ashamed, crawling home in the middle of the night and creeping in to his own house like a thief, and all for a piss­ up! Don't lie to me, you little creep, don't you dare lie to your mother! I can smell the stench of booze on you from here, you useless drunk! It's only Wednesday and you're already out getting leathered, just look at the state of your face. Seriously, who do you think you are, Leopoldo? Who the hell do you think you are, you little shit?
There wasn't a day Polo didn't ask himself the same thing, every morning, with a bread roll and a mug of luke­ warm coffee in his belly, which, on a good day, he would manage to reach the bridge without chucking up, his overalls laundered but still grubby thanks to Zorayda's in­ept hands, his face dripping with sweat and the salty wind spray that he pedalled against on his way to Paradais. Who was he, really? A little shit, his mother would say. But her little shit, at the end of the day, the 'little miracle' of the girl who got shafted yet still worked her way up in the world. He had her thick lips, the same amber eyes and wiry hair that went coppery in the sun's rays, and now he too was at the service of the same family of sharks. The muchacho as the residents called him, that's who he was: the lawn waterer, the tree pruner, the turd scooper, the car washer. the chump who appeared the second those assholes whis­ tled for him: the dogsbody. How had he sunk so low? he asked himself, without an answer. And how the fuck was he going to get out of there? Again, he didn't know. He had nothing, not a single thing to call his own. Even his salary went straight into his mother's pocket, every last peso, exactly as she'd dictated: Polo owed her, to make up for his colossal fuck-up, the opportunity he'd gone and pissed down the drain. Now it was his turn to work like a bitch, to follow Urquiza's ridiculous orders; his turn to sleep on the floor like a filthy animal while the money he earned went towards paying off his mother's countless debts and feeding the baby growing inside Zorayda's hor­ rendous belly, while that slob spent her days lounging on the rocking chair, watching cartoons - with the fan on, of course - instead of taking care of the house and cooking their meals, as they'd agreed. From the start he'd tried to reason with his mother, make her see how unfair it all was: first, it wasn't his fault his cousin couldn't keep her legs shut. Why did he have to give her his bed and sleep on the floor, on the hard concrete floor with only a thin petate under his aching body and a rolled up old t-shirt for a pillow? Why didn't they send Zorayda packing instead? She was a total pain in the ass, a freeloader, a conniving bitch who felt no shame waddling around town with a gut like a pregnant cow as if she'd been blessed with that 'little miracle' who could belong to just about any guy in town, genuinely any of them; if only Polo's mother would listen to the shit people said about her, how the little prick tease would fool around with the bus drivers, the delivery guys who stopped by Dona Pacha's store on Tuesdays, the loan sharks who passed through town on their way to Pado de Toro, and even with the boys who delivered tortillas on their mopeds, there wasn't a single one of them she hadn't rolled about with on the mucky floors of truck cabins, or on the back seats of cars, or standing bent over like a bitch in heat behind the storage rooms and animal sheds, or wherever the urge happened to take her. Why didn't his mother leave her to sort out her own shit? The little skank had asked for it. Why didn't she send Zorayda back to the aunts in Mina, let them clean up her mess? But his mother wouldn't hear it. (p. 41-42)

Every sentence is full of rebellious anger, of revolt, of lack of perspective, lack of understanding and dreams, opportunities, and fantasies being blocked and stopped. 

It's not a long story, only 118 pages in this edition, but a real joy to read. 

Her longer novel "Hurricane Season" is said to be even better. Can't wait to get my copy of this one too.