Welcome to Litsy!

What a weird little book of short stories… enjoyed it very much!

And I made it to the end of #PromptMaze 🙌

There are some horror stories here, but more of psychological terror, as anxious people struggle, and fail, to overcome their fears and insecurities, all through a distorting, fantastical lens.
Awful animals inhabit several stories: malign cats, tortured snails & intimidating toads. Obviously, the humans are worse. There's an intriguing ambiguity, too, about whether the uncanny is happening or is a psychotic misapprehension.
There's a feminist 👇

"The daily exercise of suffering gives one the gaze of an abandoned dog and the colour of a ghost."

- Fragment of a Diary [July to August]

"We left the cemetery: Leonidas stayed behind, forever." ?

- Moses and Gaspar ?�⬛

José inherits Moses and Gaspar, his brother's cats, when Leonidas dies. And they are the creepiest cats one would not wish to come across! Are they quiet? No, they are silently weeping in grief for their lost owner while they stare at you with their terrible gaze of hostility, mistrust and recrimination ??

The blurb likens Dávila's stories to those of Kafka, Poe and Shirley Jackson - marketing hyperbole or meritorious critique? There's only one way to find out ... ?

(I bought this book on the basis of really enjoying her horror story "Haute Cuisine" in a different translation to this so, actually, I'm expecting it to be meritorious ?. However, I think this may be too slim a volume to allow me to "jump the pony' on my 2022 book stack ?)

“What I do in literature is come and go from reality to fantasy, from fantasy to reality, the way life itself is.�

Amparo Dávila

This book includes 12 short stories by Mexican author Amparo Davila. Her style of writing was really interesting; each story is uncanny, ambiguous, creepy, and unsettling. They leave you with questions and goosebumps. Only a few feel like they‘re being forced into the aforementioned themes—most feel spot on, natural, and original. This work reminded me of “Her Body and Other Partiesâ€� by C.M. Machado. If you read and liked that book, read this one!

The moment I heard Dávila described as Mexico's answer to Shirley Jackson, I was intrigued and wanted to read The Houseguest. And I enjoyed this slime volume of short stories. Domestic noir, quiet despair, real danger or imagined? Dávila masters the unseen menace and ambiguity, and we repeatedly see horror that is not described, only hinted at in her writing.

Picked up slightly at the end but man, these stories don‘t go anywhere. Really surprised.

#NewYearNewYou Day 13: What makes the stories in this collection work for me is that they are thoroughly absorbing, with a ring of familiarity to it. The descriptions of the characters, the infidelities, the sense of place - this is what makes noir at its finest: there is subtlety yet with a rawness to the insanity that makes one a part of the surreal #transformation, however brief. My full review: https://wp.me/pDlzr-l7A

#GratefulReads Day 9: #BookAndSnack - more like book and meal, really. 🤣😂 @Reggie I hope you find the stories in this collection as delightfully surreal with just the right dab of macabre as I did.

See you soon, Albuquerque!
And you too, @Reggie !! 💕📚🧚ðŸ�¼â€�♀ï¸�

#Movember Day 6: So I #crave for some All-American goodness. Hence, Denny‘s it is while having a 22-hour layover in Seattle.

Feeling comfy while waiting for a 14 hour flight and a 20-hour layover in Seattle enroute to New Mexico.

#GratefulReads Day 4: My current read is #Under250Pages as I am bringing it on my upcoming overseas trip to New Mexico in two days‘ time! Seems like a fitting collection by a female novelist for our #WomenReadWomen2019 theme.

Perhaps it‘s due to my state of mind right now (feeling a lack of being seen and/or heard), but I related to a number of these stories. Many of them feature lead characters who are being stalked or tormented by something indescribable. What makes Davila‘s writing so haunting is her use of language - it‘s the language of concrete reality. So when the uncanny occurs, it feels all the more frightening and disorienting. Loved this collection!

Shirley Jackson comparisons will almost always draw me to a new author or work.

Kafkaesuqe, but in a millennial sort of way.