Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor and Sophie Hughes
The narrative starts with the discovery of the deceased body of a local witch from a small Mexican hamlet floating in an irrigation canal.
The narrative suddenly veers off course, and we are given multiple tales of both the witch’s life and the events that led up to her murder.
Because the tales are so brutally honest and unwavering, some readers may feel mistreated and beaten up.
This is certainly a wonderful book to read if you frequently have to stop to watch tragic traffic accidents because it gives the reader access to the most heartbreaking and intimate facts.
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor and Sophie Hughes
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The Witch is dead. A village-wide investigation into how and why this murder occurred is sparked when a group of kids playing near the irrigation canals find her body. There were rumours and suspicions. Melchor manages to wrest some sliver of humanity from these characters that most would write off as completely irredeemable, forming a lasting portrait of a damned Mexican village. The novel unfolds in a dazzling linguistic torrent, with each unreliable narrator lingering on new details, new acts of depravity or brutality.
The setting of Hurricane Season is one that is rich in mythology and genuine violence—the kind that seeps into the ground and taints everything nearby—and one that grows more horrific as you go further into it.
The poor people of Mexico live in a perilous environment where a vicious circle of depravity, prostitution, drug addiction, and smuggling runs parallel with extremely high levels of violence and desperation. Despite the rare glimmer of empathy and attempts at community care, it’s a pretty depressing book.
