At times uncomfortable, haunting, and not for the faint of heart (though strangely...hopeful?) altogether in stunningly written prose. A testament to Latin lit.

--Shoshana

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Mexican writer Fernanda Melchor's subject is the inner life of misogynist violence--for both perpetrators and victims--and the collective mythmaking that sanctions such crimes or makes them disappear... The novel is a Gulf Coast noir from four characters' perspectives, each circling the murder more closely than the last. All share a connection to the central suspect, Luismi, a dreamy, drug-addled ex-lover of the Witch -- who, it turns out, is not some dreadful creature but a trans woman who practices traditional medicine and throws clandestine parties. Their relationship serves as a Rorschach test for Melchor's narrators, whose actions reveal not only the details of the crime but the fears, resentments and unacknowledged lusts that condense around it like a distorting mist....She creates a narrative that not only decries an atrocity but embodies the beauty and vitality it perverts. Impressive.--Julian Lucas