Hello! I just finished the book Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana EnrĂquez and highly recommend it. Itâs a short story anthology, though there is some connective tissue between the stories. I read it in English, so there may be something lost in the translation but ultimately it was very good.
I wonât spoil it too much, but the genre is broadly horror, though it can be quite subtle at times. EnrĂquez is an Argentine author and lived as a child through the coup of 1976 and subsequent junta period. Some of this is illustrated in her work, but she refers to the period rather than describes it directly (except in one specific case). I think that the violence in the book is a representation of that period given how she portrays it in terms of generational trauma.
There are some content warnings for it, notably violence in general. Itâs not an extreme horror novel (think more Stephen King, not Jack Ketchum) and doesnât go into too much detail about the following:
Spoiler
Sexual assault/rape, self-immolation, mild body horror, inferred child abuse
There is one scene of violence towards an animal. Itâs about a paragraph long and not very heavily described in detail. A lot of folks have issues with that subject, so I figured Iâd mention it.
Okay! All that aside, if you are a fan of horror in general, gothic horror, or (in a couple cases) cosmic horror, you should check it out.