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Author: Fernanda Trías

Translator: Heather Cleary

Publisher:

Publication Year (Original Text): 2020

Page Count: 220

Goodreads Rating: 3.66 with 3,532 ratings and 740 reviews

Notable Amazon Sales Ranking: #858 in��Horror Short Stories (??—not short stories, or horror? OK . . .)

Publisher Description: In a city ravaged by a mysterious plague, a woman tries to understand why her world is falling apart. An algae bloom has poisoned the previously pristine air that blows in from the sea. Inland, a secretive corporation churns out the only food anyone can afford—a revolting pink paste, made of an unknown substance. In the short, desperate breaks between deadly windstorms, our narrator stubbornly tends to her few remaining relationships: with her difficult but vulnerable mother; with the ex-husband for whom she still harbors feelings; with the boy she nannies, whose parents sent him away even as terrible threats loomed. Yet as conditions outside deteriorate further, her commitment to remaining in place only grows—even if staying means being left behind.

An evocative elegy for a safe, clean world,��Pink Slime��is buoyed by humor and its narrator’s resiliency. This unforgettable novel explores the place where love, responsibility, and self-preservation converge, and the beauty and fragility of our most intimate relationships.

Previous Familiarity:��I was convinced—until five minutes ago—that I had met Trías at the Chautauqua Institution last summer as part of an event on climate change with Andri Snær Magnason. I did not. I met , whose book,����was translated from the Spanish and published by Charco. I mean, that’s sort of close-ish?

Translator: Heather Cleary! I met Heather when she was just getting started at an event we did for Macedonio Fernández’s��.��She’s done three Sergio Chejfec (R.I.P.) titles for us:��,��, and��.��(My god these three books are so good. Chejfec was special and deserves a rediscovery of sorts.) She’s incredibly gifted and always chooses interesting projects.

My Reading: Very anxious book that reads like a warning about future climate catastrophes and how these events will wreak havoc on social structures. I joked above about how this book isn’t��really��horror (at least not to me), but the “red fog” that rolls in and sets this whole climate disaster in motion flays the skin off people who encounter it, which is both gross and, yes, horrifying. Most interesting to me though is the “pink slime” of the title—a strange, affordable foodstuff that everyone survives on—is so so similar to the food served in the Institute in��Lanark. (In Lanark, the gross foodstuff is made from humans. Horrifying!)

Reflections on Style:��Pretty direct and evocative. “When the fog rolled in, the port turned into a swamp. Shadows fell across the plaza, filtering between the trees and leaving the long marks of their fingers on all they touched. Under each unbroken surface, mold cleaved silent through wood, rust bored into metal. Everything was rotting.” There are little zen-like, unattributed conversations (presumably between our narrator and her ex, Max) that add a bit of levity:

Once upon a time.

There was what?

Once upon a time there was a time.

That never was?

That never again.

The book is pretty bleak—a situation only reinforced by the audiobook narrator, Frankie Corzo—whose voice and cadence is��so��serious. Pink Slime is really interesting, but after this and��Woodworm, I’m dying for a book that I’d find more enjoyable and maybe a little silly—translations don’t have to be so medicinal!

Any Big Reviews?: In the��New York Times, where Lydia Millet (one of my favorite authors) says:

On either side of the caregiving woman stands a damaged and damaging male, one with power and one without. Yet inertia, too, is at the root of her paralysis — she cannot leave, she confesses, because she’s unable to imagine a life untethered to her anchors. Only the absence of these tragic boy-men may allow her to have some agency at last.

Will It Be Discussed in Five Years: I’m really curious as to how these sorts of books will fare if we have more and more environmental disasters. Will these be of interest as things fall apart, or are they best enjoyed as warnings of what��could��come to pass?

What Authors/Books Does the Publisher Compare This To: None, actually. But three of the blurbs are from authors you could group together with Trías: Mariana Enríquez, Guadalupe Nettel, and Jazmina Barrera.

Any Books You Would Recommend for Fans of��Pink Slime: by Agustina Bazterrica &��Sarah Moses, and����by Alasdair Gray.

Will it Win: My sense of things—from Winter in Sokcho��through��The Words that Remain—is that short, localized, slightly strange fiction does really well for the National Book Award. And this book has those qualities! Still haven’t read enough of these to make an informed prediction, but I’ll put this at 15% for the time being.

Your Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Anyway, I thought to myself that it would be a good idea to try and read all of these before the award ceremony (I’ll be cutting it tight, and I don’t think the Solvej Balle book comes out before the ceremony) and write something kind of frivolous about each title. Like, in the vein of the old “Why This Book Should Win” posts for the Best Translated Book Award (R.I.P.). So here goes . . .

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Author: Layla Martínez

Translators: Sophie Hughes & Annie McDermott

Publisher:

Publication Year (Original Text): 2021

Page Count: 153

Goodreads Rating: 4.16 with 11,800 ratings and 2,283 reviews

Notable Amazon Sales Ranking: #286 in Ghost Fiction

Publisher Description: The house breathes. The house contains bodies and secrets. The house is visited by ghosts, by angels that line the roof like insects, and by saints that burn the bedsheets with their haloes.��It was built by a smalltime hustler as a��means of controlling his wife, and even after so many years, their daughter and her granddaughter can’t leave. They may be witches or they may just be angry, but when the mysterious disappearance of a young boy draws unwanted attention, the two isolated women, already subjects of public scorn, combine forces with the spirits that haunt them in pursuit of something that resembles justice.

In this lush translation by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott,��Layla Martínez’s eerie debut novel is class-conscious horror that drags generations of monsters into the sun. Described by Mariana Enriquez as “a��house of women and shadows, built from poetry and revenge,” this vision of a broken family in our unjust world places power in the hands of the eccentric, the radical, and the desperate.

Previous Familiarity:��So, I wanted to do this book for Open Letter and read a sample back in the summer of 2022. And then blew our chance by not getting in an offer in time for the auction. Which we likely would’ve lost. And that’s fine—Two Lines is excellent! But I did know the outline and general themes of the book before starting it this week.

Translators: Sophie Hughes & Annie McDermott are both absolutely fantastic. I edited their translation of��Montevideo��by Enrique Vila-Matas (pub date ???) this past spring, and it was such a gifted, assured, excellent translation. Allowed for very strategic editing suggestions, whereas some translations feel like they need one more pass by the translator.

My Reading:��It’s a book about intergenerational trauma and, to some extent, the impact of Spain’s Civil War. I mean, there are��literally��skeletons in the closet in this. It also addresses the divisions between social classes, with the two narrators— granddaughter and grandmother—and isolated and not well off, yet are entangled for generations with the very wealthy Jarabos.

Reflections on Style:��The language in the book is a bit off-kilter, which is fitting with the gothic horror elements present throughout. (The scratching, the spirits inhabiting the house, the grandmother’s conversations with the “saints,” etc.) That said, it’s not wildly experimental or anything, just clipped with interesting word choices, such as in the opening line: “I walked in and the house pounced on me.” The chapters go back-and-forth from granddaughter to grandmother There were times where I’d put the book down, and when I picked it back up have to reorient myself as to who was talking since the voices are rather similar, but that’s a minor complaint.

Any Big Reviews?: In the��New Yorker, who said, “Shadowed by the Spanish Civil War and the remarkable cruelty of men, the violent tale unspools into a potent consideration of inherited trauma and the elusiveness of justice.”

Will It Be Discussed in Five Years:��I would say that’s not assured. If it wins, sure! But otherwise . . . maybe? And this isn’t a slight on the book! It’s just that most books fade from public consciousness after a couple three years—until they’re “rediscovered” a decade later. This does fit a certain type of book that’s quite popular now, so it should have great word-of-mouth.

What Authors/Books Does the Publisher Compare This To: Samanta Schweblin and Fernanda Melchor. And throw in Mariana Enriquez, who blurbed it.

Any Books You Would Recommend for Fans of��Wormwood:����by Lucío Cardoso and����by José Donoso.

Will it Win: My sense of things—from Winter in Sokcho through��The Words that Remain—is that short, localized, slightly strange fiction does really well for the National Book Award. And this book has those qualities! It’s the first I’ve read so I can’t judge it against the field, but, it has a 10% chance right now (shortlist hasn’t been announced), and based on these qualities, I’ll bump it up to 15% (and may adjust this later).

Your Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars