Here Be Icebergs

These haunting stories from Adaui (Geography of Obscurity) explore the pain of familial strife. In “This Is the Man,” a young boy is repeatedly molested by his older cousin in their grandmother’s garage. He hides his trauma from his mother for nearly a decade, and when he finally tells her, she offers little consolation, saying, “Family is family.” “Lovebird” follows a woman who, struggling to cope with her father’s suicide two months after her mother’s death, sets out to win over a new neighbor by buying her a pet bird. Deaf twins choose assisted suicide after they find out they are going blind in “The Hamberes Twins,” receiving their mother’s anguished approval: “For my sons, the idea of never seeing each other again is the only unbearable pain.” “That Horse” depicts a young girl pondering mortality after watching an injured horse get put to death, while “Alaska” traces the movements of the narrator’s ancestors from Italy to Peru to the U.S. and back again. Adaui’s poetic prose elevates the poignancy of these mostly somber stories (“The heart, a trawl net in deep waters, hunts without knowing what it’s caught”). This one will stick with readers long after they finish the last page. (June)