by Mariana Enrquez Clear rating. What kind of Virgin is the statue, and why do you think Natalia is able to summon this curse? Enrquez, a journalist who grew up in Buenos Aires during Argentina's Dirty Wara trauma that echoes across these storiesis a pioneer of Argentinian horror and Spanish-language weird fiction, warping familiar settings (city parks, an office building, a stretch of neighborhood street) by wefting in the uncanny, supernatural, or monstrously human. (Like Flores and Schweblin, Enriquez's work is translated into English by Megan McDowell.) What drew you to the voice of these girls speaking together? Looking back at Spiderwebs I dont believe I ever read it, though I was excited to based on her publishers comparisons to Shirley Jackson and Julio Cortzar. Shes expecting a Virgin, but what she actually finds is Pomba Gira, an Afro-Brazilian spirit evoked by practitioners of Umbanda and Quimbanda. It's his death that precipitates the nervous breakdown that costs Tom his job, and Savannah, almost, her life. The Virgins Pool was special, people said, because almost no one ever went there. makes the outcome of the story extra disturbing, because I relate to her. I discovered this Argentine writer when her tightly woven, psychologically astute story Our Lady of the Quarry was published in the New Yorker (issue of December 21, 2020). . One afternoon, when we were on our way to P.E. Plus she had a flat ass and broad hips, which was why jeans never fit her well. Mariana Enrquezs most popular book is The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wow those four years . Living with Saint Death - The New York Review of Books When he hears that his fierce, beautiful twin sister Savannah, a well-known New York poet, has once again attempted suicide, he escapes his present emasculation by flying north to meet Savannah's comely psychiatrist, Susan Lowenstein. We saw them start to feel guilty. . Wed met Diego in Bariloche on our senior-class trip. The pool was really huge; from the shallows we could see their two dark heads bobbing on the surface, and we could see their lips moving, but we had no idea what they were saying. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. She probably would have told us, but we would never ask. . On the other side was the hill over which the owners truck could appear at any moment. Yes, there's teen angst, but in a brutal, chilling ending, we see that even when swimming on a sunny . Posted in Culture. Not really. They must have seen the way we were panting, our armpits stinking like onion and our hair stuck to our temples. The decay of our physical selves, the fears of an afterlife, and sudden surges of sex ignite these stories with a blue flame; her exploration of female self-pleasure is both erotic and chilling. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. The days were torrid and the water was so cold: it was like sinking into a miracle. You dont know why exactly, but you are certain something is wrong. Ravioles de Royans / Ravioles du . Sign up for the Books & Fiction newsletter. "Our Lady of the Quarry," a volatile mix of teenage vanity, jealousy, and rage leads to a summoning of dark powers and disproportionate revenge. The sun was burning and flat-ass Silvias nose was peeling, she used the crappiest sunscreen, she was a disaster. Its interesting that Natalia ends up appealing to the Virgin for her revenge. As far as I can tell, at this point we have just one collection of stories, 2017s Things We Lost in the Fire. And from then on he kept treating us well, its true, but Silvia totally took over and kept him spellbound (or dumbfoundedopinions were divided), telling stories about Mexico and peyote and sugar skulls. It also appears in Enriquez new collection, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed , which just came out with Hogarth in January 2021. Isabel Allende looms large as the doyenne of Latin American literature. She asked around a little and decided we had to go to the Virgins Pool, which was the best, the cleanest. Mariana Enrquez (Buenos Aires, 1973) is an Argentine novelist, short story writer, essayist, and journalist, with over half a dozen books to her name. We wanted to be with him still wet from the cold quarry water, to fuck him one after the other as he lay on the little beach, to wait for the owners gunshots and run to the highway half-naked under a rain of bullets. An atmospheric assemblage of cunning and cutting Argentine gothic tales. When Diego and Sylvia play a trick on the girls at the quarry, a dangerous place named the Virgins Pool, the Enrquez's extraordinaryand extraordinarily ominousfiction holds up a mirror to our bewildering times, when borders between the everyday and the inexplicable blur, and converge. Because it was true for all of us, it wasnt just an obsession of Nataliaswe wanted Diego to choose us. Getting around the quarry wasnt easy; it seemed much smaller when you were sitting on the little beach. They were older, they didnt have curfews, Silvia had her own apartment, how stupid wed been to apply our little-kid limitations to them. Translated by Megan McDowell. Review of the short story from the Dec. 21, 2020 issue of The New Yorker For about a month over the holidays I wasn't getting my New Yorkers in the mail. "Our Lady of the Quarry" | The New Yorker To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. It was eerie and kind of lawless to go there: it was out of town, and of course it was forbidden to swim there, because it was dangerous. The short stories of Argentine author and journalist Mariana Enriquez are seeing machineslenses that throw the uglier side of the human condition into uncomfortably sharp focus. They opened the little cooler we always brought to the quarry and took out a cold beer, and just as Diego flipped off the cap with his keychain opener we heard the first growl. That bitch has something up her sleeve, she said, and she kept walking toward the Virgin we could barely see inside the grotto. It was really far, nearly at the end of the 307 route, after the bus merged onto the highway. Mariana Enriquez's fiction is haunted by the specter of late-twentieth-century Latin American history. LITERARY FICTION | Everything from the girls' idolization of Silvia, to their sexual lust that they talk about acting on but never do, to their jealousy over their friend's success with the opposite sex, to their ultimate betrayal and abandonment of her, in a moment driven by petty teenage bitterness, is right out of Being a Teenager 101, if such a book existed. Silvia hated public pools and country-club pools, even the pools at estates or weekend houses; she said the water wasnt fresh, it always felt stagnant to her. Then shed get over it. A dance of demons staring into our souls. Hogarth, $27 (208p) ISBN 978-0-593-13407-8 By David Wallace. THE DANGERS OF SMOKING IN BED | Kirkus Reviews In Angelita Unearthed, a girl excavates the bones of an infant only to confront, a decade later, the dead baby stalking her. I n The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, Argentine writer Mariana Enriquez lures us on road trips with a zombie baby, and a group of catty teenager girls to quarry, and into neighborhoods besieged (by a curse) in Buenos Aires and (by a stink) in Barcelona, and to a sleepover on Buenos Airess outskirts, or the first-person plural narrator describes it, East "Mariana Enriquez has been critically lauded for her unconventional and sociopolitical stories of the macabre: populated by unruly teenagers, crooked witches, homeless ghosts, and hungry women, they walk the uneasy line between urban realism and horror. Fiction by Mariana Enriquez: "Once, the bus driver said something strange to us: that we should watch out for wild dogs on the loose." "Our Lady of the Quarry" Argentinas Samanta Schweblin, Chiles Paulina Flores, and Brazils Carola Saavedra are a few who collapse the walls between the real and the imagined. I guess the idea being that its the details of the characters normal lives that makes the abnormal parts hit harder. In fact, Silvia and Diego had been seeing each other without us at night for a while. When I wrote "Our Lady," I was obsessed with teen-age girls and with my own teen-age years. Submit a letter: . But Silvia stood up and pointed to the hill where the owner supposedly might appear. . LITERARY FICTION | But there's a new generation of women writers poised for literary prominence in the U.S. The first time he took off his shirt, we discovered that his shoulders were strong and hunched, and his back was narrow and had a sandy color, just above his pants, that was simply beautiful. Its free and takes less than 10 seconds! By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. [2] Parts of her family hail from North-Eastern Argentina (Corrientes and Misiones) and Paraguay. Shed wrung out the blood from cotton gauze, which was disgusting; she normally used pads or tampons, the cotton was just so she could get the blood. Mariana Enrquez - Wikipedia Pre-publication book reviews and features keeping readers and industry But at parties, when she tried to talk to him, Diego just flashed her a sideways smile and went on with his conversation with one of us other girls. . He paid attention to us for a while, until Silvia started chatting him up. Enriquez has published the novels: Bajar es lo peor (Espasa Calpe, 1995), Cmo desaparecer completamente (Emec, 2004) and Nuestra parte de noche (Anagrama, 2019). Because Silvia always knew more: if one of us discovered Frida Kahlo, oh, Silvia had already visited Fridas house with her cousin in Mexico, before he vanished. Shed done it at Silvias housewhere else! We were sixteen, and some of us hadnt had sex yetit was terrible. These were not the owners dogs, we thought, they were the dogs the bus driver had told us about, savage and dangerous. Latitude & Longitude (decimal): . She diluted it a little in water, but she said it should work all the same. When we got to the highway and heard Silvias and Diegos screams, we secretly prayed that no car would stop and hear them, toosometimes, since we were so young and pretty, people stopped and offered to take us to the city for free. By MARIANA ENRIQUEZ. from the December 21, 2020 issue ofThe New Yorker. Mariana Enrquez (Buenos Aires, 1973) is an Argentine journalist, novelist, and short story writer. The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez The food and drink of Rhne-Alpes - FrenchEntre Megan McDowell Books by Mariana Enrquez (Author of Things We Lost in the Fire) Her stories have appeared in anthologies of Spain, Mexico, Chile, Bolivia and Germany.[6]. I fully expected this to be the final issue ofThe New Yorker for 2020 since usually the last two weeks of the year are combined into one. Danial Majidi - Grenoble, Auvergne-Rhne-Alpes, France - LinkedIn And he said, Why dont we swim over to the Virgin? Natalia went pale, because she didnt know how to swim. The chairs have been cleared out, along with the crucifix and the images of Jesus and Our Lady Mariana Enriquez's macabre fantasies are various and unnerving and not a little bit metal.