Hurricane Season (novel)

Hurricane Season (Spanish: Temporada de huracanes) is the second novel by Mexican writer Fernanda Melchor, published in April 2017[1] by Literatura Random House.[2][3] It is a nonlinear narrative[4] and a third-person narrative.[5] It focuses on the events surrounding the murder of the Witch of La Matosa, an impoverished fictional town in Mexico through which Melchor explores violence and machismo in Mexican society.[6]

Hurricane Season
First edition
AuthorFernanda Melchor
Audio read byDaniela Aedo
Original titleTemporada de huracanes
TranslatorSophie Hughes
CountryMexico
LanguageSpanish
Set inLa Matosa, Mexico
PublisherLiteratura Random House
Publication date
April 2017
Published in English
2020
Media typePrint (paperback)
Pages224
AwardsInternational Literature Award (2019)
ISBN978-607-31-5273-0
OCLC989794906
863.7
LC ClassPQ7298.423.E3795 T46 2017

The novel was a critical and commercial success,[7] solidifying Melchor as one of the most acclaimed Latin American writers of her generation.[8][9][10] It has been translated into German by Angelica Ammar,[9] and into English by Sophie Hughes.[11] The novel was awarded the 2019 International Literature Award,[12] shortlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize[13] and longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature.[14]

Plot

One day, a group of children from the small town of La Matosa discover a decomposing corpse in a canal belonging to the Witch of the town. The Witch was a feared and respected woman who everyone turned to for help with their various problems.[15] She lived in a large dilapidated house where she held parties with the village youth, to whom she paid money in exchange for sexual favors.

A girl named Yesenia lived with her grandmother and her cousins near the Witch. Throughout her life, Yesenia felt rejected by her grandmother in favor of her cousin Maurilio (nicknamed Luismi). She hated Maurilio because, despite having become an alcoholic and drug addict, he was still the favorite of their grandmother.[16] Luismi eventually moves in with his mother, Chabela, and his stepfather, Munra. Months later there are rumors that he has a wife and is expecting a child. On the day of the murder, Yesenia watches from her house and sees Munra's truck parked at the house of the Witch. She then sees Luismi with another man carrying a bundle to the vehicle. Yesenia informs the police of everything she saw, with the intention of having her cousin arrested.

Munra is arrested after Yesenia's statement, but he claims not to know anything about the matter. He recalls days earlier having taken Luismi with his wife, Norma, to the hospital after she began bleeding and running a fever. They both quickly flee after child welfare services discover that Norma is thirteen years old. The next day, Munra finds Luismi in the courtyard observing a small object covered in blood that is buried in a hole in the ground. Munra is convinced that it is a work of witchcraft. After picking up Brando, a friend of Luismi, they pay Munra to take them to the Witch. Munra has been uncomfortable around the Witch ever since he found out she is a transgender woman. Luismi and Brando enter her house, and half an hour later they exit carrying out a bundle wrapped in cloth. Munra decides not to ask and takes them to the outskirts of town, where the boys dump the bundle in a canal.

Norma originally arrived in La Matosa after fleeing her hometown, having becoming pregnant by her stepfather,[15] who had raped her for years. Luismi finds her crying in a park and decides to take her home. The two begin a relationship, but Luismi almost never wants to have sex with her. When Chabela discovers that Norma is pregnant, she takes her to the Witch to give her a potion that will induce abortion.[16] In the early morning, the pains are so strong that Norma crawls out of bed and has an abortion in the middle of the patio, which she buries in a hole. The days pass by and Norma's pain and bleeding do not stop, so she is taken to the hospital, where they discover that she is a minor. She is relentlessly reproached by the doctors, but she refuses to capitulate and incriminate Luismi.

Brando's father abandoned him and his mother when Brando was a child.[15] Brando could not put up with his mother's strong religiosity, so he joined the group of older boys in town, with whom he began to drink and take drugs at the Witch's house. They teach him that the best way to make money is by having sex with homosexuals, but Brando claims to be repulsed by the idea. When Brando hears Luismi sing, he begins to have erotic thoughts about him. He discovers that Luismi had an affair with one of the men who paid him. One day, when the two of them are drunk, they end up having sex. The next morning Luismi does not say anything, and Brando becomes obsessed with the incident. He fears that Luismi would disclose their affair to others, so Brando imagines ways to murder Luismi.

Brando attacks the man with whom Luismi had a relationship. The man then disappears, leaving Luismi devastated. Months later, Luismi tells them that he now has a wife and that he plans to quit using drugs. Brando remains obsessed with Luismi and proposes that the two of them steal from the Witch, who supposedly has a stash of hidden treasure. Brando suggests escaping together, although in his mind he is still considering murdering Luismi. Luismi initially refuses, but after Norma's abortion he has become convinced that everything is the work the Witch. Luismi goes with Brando and Munra to the her house, where they beat the Witch until Brando savagely kills her. They uncover no treasure, so they return home, where they are arrested hours later. The police beat Brando to get information out of him about the treasure, but he has nothing. Days later, Munra and Luismi are taken to the cell, both with signs of having been severely beaten. Brando, full of emotion and hatred, is there awaiting Luismi.

Writing and structure

Melchor came up with the idea for the story after reading a crónica roja (crime report) about the murder of a woman whose body was discovered in a canal in rural Veracruz. The crime was committed by a man who claimed to have killed the woman because she attempted to bewitch him. Melchor initially planned to investigate the crime further and transform it into a non-fiction novel similar to the style of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (1966). However, she chose not pursue the non-fiction style due to the dangers of traveling and researching in areas with a strong presence of drug trafficking organizations. Melchor instead decided to explore the story through fiction.[9]

The novel consists of eight chapters, the first and final two of which are relatively short in length. The other chapters are longer in length and feature detailed narration of several of the main characters of the novel. Each chapter focuses on one of the characters and their respective relationship with the murder of the Witch.[17] The long chapters are made up of a single block of text without paragraph divisions and are written in a colloquial language that incorporates characteristics of the Mexican oral tradition.[6][18][19] Melchor's narrative style was inspired by that of Gabriel García Márquez in his novel The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975),[20] which Melchor mentions in the acknowledgements section of Hurricane Season.[17]

Melchor decided on the novel's style and structure after writing the first two chapters, which spontaneously took on the form of an intense narrative without paragraph breaks. From this, she made it a "technical challenge" to maintain the same narrative style throughout the rest of the work. Melchor was in a "very pessimistic" state of mind while writing the novel due the violence, misogyny and homophobia plaguing the region at that time. Melchor says Hurriance Season is, as a whole, largely about "being young and having no future—and feeling this incredible urge to escape through any means possible."[21]

Reception

The book was critically acclaimed, particularly for its portrayal of the issues of contemporary Mexico, receiving several mentions as one of the best books of the year.[9][22][12] The Spanish writer Jorge Carrión, writing for The New York Times, included the novel in his list of the best Ibero-American books of 2017 and described its style as "virtuous, oppressive."[23]

The Mexican novelist Antonio Ortuño, writing for Letras Libres, gave the novel a positive review, characterizing it as a "grand narrative, ambitious, rotund" and praising in particular Melchor's incorporation of Mexican slang and her exploration of the realities of Mexico.[24] These same characteristics were praised by Bolivian writer Edmundo Paz Soldán in his review for La Tercera, in which he wrote that within Melchor's prose "the profanity, the desire to name the obscene and the scatalogical, are revealed in all their explosive beauty." Paz Soldán also singled out the chapter focusing on Norma's relationship with her stepfather Pepe as being the best in the novel.[20] Meanwhile, Dalia Cristerna, writing for El Universal, described the novel as a testimony to the violence, corruption and poverty experienced by marginalized sectors of society.[15]

The review in the British newspaper The Guardian, written by Anthony Cummins, described the novel as "intense and inventive" and as "a brutal portrait of small-town claustrophobia, in which machismo is a prison and corruption isn't just institutional but domestic." Cummins referred largely to the violence of the plot, which he called "near-dystopian", principally in the treatment received by women in relation to the powers reserved men.[25] These characteristics were also highlighted in the review by Kirkus Reviews, who called it "tough stuff but not gratuitously so." The review particularly praised the "two virtuoso chapters" which focus on Norma and Brando as underscoring "the depth of feeling and disquieting intensity Melchor is capable of." Regarding Melchor, Kirkus Reviews concluded that she has "deep reserves of talent and nerve."[26]

Melchor's treatment of violence in the novel was a consistent emphasis by the majority of critics. Amanda Dennis, in a review written in the Los Angeles Review of Books, asserted that several of the scenes were so brutal that they made Truman Capote and Cormac McCarthy seem tame. Dennis also proclaimed that it was precisely Melchor's "willingness to explode a violent act into multiple perspectives, to look at it again and again from different angles (perpetrator, bystander, accomplice)" that made the novel "feel weightier than most contemporary fiction."[27] The review of The New York Times, written by Julian Lucas, called the novel "impressive", referring to the murder of the Witch as an event that Melchor "captures in language as though distilling venom."[16]

Angelica Ammar's German translation of the novel, titled Saison der Wirbelstürme, won the 2019 International Literature Award. In its decision, the jury stated that Melchor wrote "the novel of poverty in twenty-first century global capitalism, the novel of poverty born of violence against women, against homosexuals, against those who are weaker. The novel of the merciless struggle of the weakest against the even weaker and against themselves."[12][28]

At the end of 2019, the Spanish newspaper El País ranked Hurricane Season as 28th on its list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.[29]

Publication history

  • Temporada de huracanes (in Spanish). Mexico City: Literatura Random House. April 2017. ISBN 978-607-31-5273-0.
  • Saison der Wirbelstürme (in German). Translated by Ammar, Angelica. Berlin: Verlag Klaus Wagenbach. 2019. ISBN 978-3-8031-3307-6.
  • Orkaanseizoen (in Dutch). Translated by Peperkamp, Bart. Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek. 2020. ISBN 978-90-284-2779-2.
  • Hurricane Season. Translated by Hughes, Sophie. London: Fitzcarraldo Editions. 19 February 2020. ISBN 978-1-913097-09-7.[30]

Awards and nominations

References

  1. Mendoza, Élmer (19 June 2018). "Fernanda Melchor y el placer de contarlo todo". El Universal (in Spanish). Retrieved 3 February 2021.
  2. "Temporada de huracanes / Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor: 9786073152730". Penguin Random House. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
  3. Sánchez, Felipe (28 December 2017). "Fernanda Melchor: "Me identifico con el vampiro emo de 'Entrevista con el vampiro"". El País (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 19 April 2019. Retrieved 6 August 2019.
  4. Sánchez Prado, Ignacio M. (April 2020). "Fernanda Melchor's "Hurricane Season": A Literary Triumph on the Failures of Mexican Modernization". Words Without Borders. Retrieved 3 February 2021.
  5. Mars-Jones, Adam (March 19, 2020). "Muffled Barks, Muted Yelps". London Review of Books. Vol. 42 no. 6. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
  6. Di Bernardo, Francisco (October 2017). "Temporada de huracanes de Fernanda Melchor". Latin American Literature Today (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 17 April 2018. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
  7. "Fernanda Melchor, escritora". Gatopardo (in Spanish). 3 April 2019. Archived from the original on 4 April 2019. Retrieved 29 January 2021.
  8. "Escritora mexicana Fernanda Melchor: Ni la literatura ni el feminismo necesitan de Vargas Llosa". El Mostrador (in Spanish). 28 March 2018. Archived from the original on 28 March 2018. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
  9. ""Temporada de huracanes", de Fernanda Melchor: realismo y pesadilla en México". Deutsche Welle (in Spanish). 17 December 2017. Archived from the original on 7 August 2019. Retrieved 6 August 2019.
  10. Pérez, David Marcial (19 June 2018). ""Ser mujer en México es como haber nacido con una discapacidad"". El País (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 19 June 2018. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
  11. "In Conversation: Fernanda Melchor & Sophie Hughes". Granta. February 24, 2020. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
  12. "Escritora mexicana Fernanda Melchor, Premio Internacional de Literatura 2019". El Espectador (in Spanish). 19 June 2019. Archived from the original on 19 June 2019. Retrieved 6 August 2019.
  13. Flood, Alison (April 2, 2020). "International Booker prize shortlist led by 28-year-old's debut". The Guardian. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
  14. "The 2020 National Book Awards Longlist: Translated Literature". The New Yorker. September 16, 2020. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
  15. Cristerna, Dalia (17 June 2017). "Polifonía de la barbarie". El Universal (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 23 June 2017. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
  16. Lucas, Julian (31 March 2020). "A Mexican Novel Conjures a Violent World Tinged With Beauty". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 1 April 2020. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
  17. Cambronero Gómez, Roberto (19 April 2018). "Relojería infernal: Temporada de huracanes de Fernanda Melchor". ViceVersa Magazine (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 8 August 2019. Retrieved 6 August 2019.
  18. Flores, Gabriel (2017). "Temporada de huracanes". El Comercio (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 8 August 2019. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
  19. Balabarca Fataccioli, Lisette (2017). "Temporada de huracanes, de Fernanda Melchor". Las Críticas (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 8 August 2019. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
  20. Paz Soldán, Edmundo (20 August 2017). "Fernanda Melchor: intensidad y horror". La Tercera (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 20 August 2017. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
  21. Seidel, Matt (10 January 2020). "Writers to Watch Spring 2020". Publishers Weekly. Archived from the original on 2 April 2020. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
  22. "4 libros para entender México recomendados por sus periodistas (y otros sugeridos por los lectores de BBC Mundo)". BBC (in Spanish). 14 September 2018. Archived from the original on 18 September 2018. Retrieved 6 August 2019.
  23. Carrión, Jorge (17 December 2017). "Los libros de ficción de 2017: una selección iberoamericana". The New York Times (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 18 December 2019. Retrieved 6 August 2019.
  24. Ortuño, Antonio (19 June 2017). "Por fin". Letras Libres (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 19 October 2017. Retrieved 6 August 2019.
  25. Cummins, Anthony (22 February 2020). "Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor review – intense and inventive". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 22 February 2020. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  26. "Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor ; translated by Sophie Hughes". Kirkus Reviews. 23 December 2019. Archived from the original on 27 February 2020. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  27. Dennis, Amanda (31 March 2020). "A Terrible Beauty: On Fernanda Melchor's "Hurricane Season"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Archived from the original on 2 April 2020.
  28. "Internationaler Literaturpreis 2019". Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Retrieved 2 February 2021.
  29. Rodríguez Marcos, Javier (29 November 2019). "Los 21 mejores libros del siglo XXI". El País (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2 December 2019. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  30. "Hurricane Season". Fitzcarraldo Editions. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  31. "The International Booker Prize 2020". The Booker Prizes. Retrieved 2 February 2021.
  32. "Hurricane Season". National Book Foundation. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
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