DNF after section 2, about 160 pages in. Slow, confusing, with flat, stereotypical characters. ( )

An insane, towering achievement. I have never read a book like this before, and I doubt I will again. There are books that people use to signify who they are as a reader – people on their first read of Infinite Jest or Ulysses. I will forever remember my experience reading this.

I'm not even sure what to say this book is about. A ghost story, a family saga, I don't know. I couldn't read it at night because the nightmares got too real for me. And also I couldn't stop reading it, I had to follow through. There are so many questions I have about the ending, but they don't matter in the long run. The descriptions of Juan and his unnatural beauty and horrifying illness are arresting. Gaspar's fury and confusion are visceral and near the surface. Some descriptions are so vivid I ended up gulping and gulping so that I wouldn't throw up. This is a book I will read again and again for the rest of my life. The cameo from David Bowie was also incredible and charming and felt like a real gesture of love and honor, same with the passing allusions to Prince and Paisley Park.

Five stars. ( )

In its opening pages, Our Share of Night throws the reader in at the deep end, right in mid-action, with little explanation as to what is happening. We know – from the title of the chapter – that we are in January 1981. We can gather that young Gaspar and his father Juan are leaving Buenos Aires, on the run from someone or something. We learn that Gaspar’s mum Rosario died in a horrendous traffic accident and that Juan has serious health problems. But the story is not told linearly, and readers must put in some effort to orientate themselves. And there’s ample time to do so, as this is a tome of a novel, running at over 700 pages. In this sort of novel, spoilers would be criminal and so I will only give a high-level indication of the plot. It turns out that Juan is a natural medium who not only “sees dead people” like the guy in The Sixth Sense but, more chillingly, is a conduit for a demonic entity referred to as “The Darkness”. His supernatural powers are harnessed by a group of rich and high-class families who are part of “The Order”, a society which seeks to communicate with the Darkness for its devious ends, not least achieving immortality. Although close to the Order, Juan does not trust its members and, realising that Gaspar has inherited his supernatural traits, wants to spare Gaspar the fate which seems reserved for him.

The novel has a largely symmetrical structure – the second and fifth (of six chapters) are much shorter than the others and are somewhat self-contained, although they are better understood in the context of the remaining chapters, which are much longer. Some chapters revisit earlier material, reproposing it in a different light or presenting it from the perspective of a different character. Most of the novel takes place in Argentina, although a good part of the fourth chapter, which centres on the story Gaspar’s mother Rosario, is set in 60s London, thus allowing a bizarre cameo appearance by David Bowie. The timeline is fluid, moving backwards and forwards and ultimately covering close to four decades from 1960 to 1997. Attention to historical detail gives each section its specific aura – whether its the 1986 World Cup (in the third chapter) or the Aids crisis and the protest movements of the 80s and 90s (particularly in the final segment).

Mariana Enríquez has, so far, been best known in the English-speaking(reading) world for her collections of short stories The Dangers of Smoking in Bed and Things We Lost in the Fire. These were compared to the works of Borges and Shirley Jackson and wowed both the Gothic/horror crowd and readers of more mainstream “literary” fiction. I must admit that I hadn’t read either of those books before tackling her novel Our Share of Night but, based on the reviews of her shorter fiction I was expecting an experimental work which would give me a tough time. I was (pleasantly) surprised to discover that this novel is, in many ways, quite a traditional narrative-driven epic which held my attention despite its length (lately, I rarely manage books exceeding four hundred pages, let alone twice that).

There are certainly many dark delights in here for lovers of the Gothic to savour. Whatever Gothic trope you can think of will probably be lurking within these pages, possibly reworked, but still recognisable: there are ghosts, monsters, body horror, folk horror, South American beliefs and superstitions, occult rituals, a dose of Catholicism for good measure, decaying jungle mansions, secret passages, nightly ceremonies, secret societies redolent of the Geheimbundroman, tarot, spells, haunted houses (whose area, House-of-Leaves-like, is different on the inside than on the outside), family secrets. And true to the Gothic tradition of social consciousness, the story also doubles as not-so-subtle political commentary. The Order is close to Argentina’s junta, and the sadistic, ritual violence of sect – described, at times, in stomach-churning detail, ultimately reflects and feeds off the real-life thuggery of the higher political echelons. The Order also represents the evils of capitalism, with the expendable mediums representing the downtrodden, used and abused by the system.

This political dimension, coupled with the unusual non-linear narrative, gives Our Share of Night its contemporary vibe. However, apart from this, there’s some great “old-fashioned” storytelling here which only starts to fall apart in the final section. Here I thought that certain loose ends were tied up too quickly, while others were left open and unaddressed.

Like her short stories, Mariana Enríquez’s novel is rendered in a masterful English translation by Megan McDowell, with illustrations by Pablo Gerardo Camacho adding to the work’s macabre atmosphere.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2022/07/our-share-of-night-by-mariana-enrique... ( )

Texto extraordinário de Mariana Enriquez, que alinha com muita competência e sensibilidade aquilo que é terrível e perturbador no campo das crenças, do imaginário, com a vida vivida, a perversidade na miséria e na opressão. O Estranho (unheimlich) e o cotidiano embaralhados de uma forma assustadora - e reconhecível, na tradição de Poe e Lovercraft. Em meio a um cenário de opressão social e política familiar para todos nós, especialmente na América Latina, Mariana nos remete a nós mesmos, sociedade e história, como origem e fim do que pode ser redentor e trágico. O romance e a reflexão que ele provoca valem o tempo dedicado a ele. ( )

Our Share of Night
By Mariana Enriquez
I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this book.
This sounded so interesting I was very happy to get approved to read it.
I thought the overall plot was fairly good but different. Our man of the story, Juan, is a medium. He is a conduit for the darkness. Boy, is this book dark and so very, very, long! There is so much that could be condensed.
Juan has a son named Gaspar. Gaspar is already getting stronger than Juan was at Gaspar's age. Juan doesn't want his son to be a medium.
A medium physical changes into a monster at these sick ceremonies and mutilates or kills victims. The mind changes too, Juan is cruel and crazy many days. Abusive to Gaspar.
This book is filled with, not horror, but just sick stuff. Child abuse, shock value stuff like a bag of eye lids, and kids watching men have sex.
The time line is all over the place too.
I like horror books but this was unorganized, instead of suspense it had just gross/sick material, and none of the characters were interesting enough to become attached to. I felt sorry for the son through most of the book but I didn't really feel I knew him. If you have characters, make someone likeable and not in a cult that worships a bloodthirsty monster! ( )