“One night, while the ship swayed gently, she told him that certain beings were content with wine and flowers, but real gods demanded blood.”
A sprawling epic that traverses Latin American politics, black magic, class struggles, sexual identity, and other themes, "Our Share of Night" is a kaleidoscope of imagery and intensity.
“He had dreamed of damp hallways and handprints on walls, of the dark light that could wound and bite.”
“The Darkness was a bone collector. You didn’t talk to it. You didn’t negotiate.”
Mariana Enriquez balances drama and terror, though the book's translations can seem sketchy or incomplete. The story captivates, with cryptic passages set against the backdrop of beautiful artwork.
“I hope he dies, he thought. I hope Dad dies once and for all and puts an end to all this and I can live with my uncle or with Vicky or alone in the house and I don’t ever have to think again about locked rooms, voices in my head, dreams of hallways and dead people, ghost families, boxes full of eyelids, blood on the floor, where he goes when he leaves, where he’s coming from when he returns, I wish I could stop loving him, forget him, I wish he’d die.”
This novel is at times vivid, gruesome, and heart-breaking, making it both engrossing and difficult to read. Enriquez has built entrancing worlds, seen and unseen, real and imaginary, welcoming and threatening.
“Or maybe they were going to be two solitary men sharing a secret in that still house, year after year, who would run into each other in the early-morning hours, unable to sleep, incapable of forgetting how the hanged man swaying in the wind had no shadow.”
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