The Summer of the Serpent

Mexican author and scholar Eudave makes her English-language debut with a mysterious and fantastical novella set in 1977 Guadalajara, an “unusual year” when the “world fell apart, or would soon fall apart,” amid punishing weather, nuclear anxiety, Pinochet’s military coup, the death of Elvis, the Son of Sam, and other portents. It begins with a young girl named Maricarmen, who visits a parish fair with her father and sister and becomes obsessed with a freak show exhibit of a “serpent girl” kept in a glass box by a fortune teller. Before Maricarmen leaves the fair, she witnesses the serpent girl being raped by her keeper. In the chapters that follow, Maricarmen and her neighbors are gripped by a series of disturbing encounters, sometimes involving animals or ghosts. There’s the boy who watches a man routinely hang his dog from a tree in a precise and scientific manner, the girl whose pet boa constrictor patiently endures its doting owner while considering whether to make a break for the jungle, and the ghost who visits the children’s bedsides to tell them stories. Eventually, the various threads converge into a satisfying and thought-provoking finale. Readers will be grateful for the introduction to this distinctive writer. (June)