December 9, 2024
This heartrending postapocalyptic tale from Bazterrica (Tender Is the Flesh) examines religious devotion and the search for tenderness in a world torn apart by climate collapse. As a member of the Sacred Sisterhood, a monastic order cloistered within the decaying walls of what used to be a church, the nameless heroine keeps a secret diary detailing the horrors she and the other members of the “unworthy” caste suffer at the hands of the Superior Sister, a whip-wielding despot who stands in for a hidden god. When a nearly starved woman named Lucía finds her way to the convent, the protagonist’s recollections of life before the Sacred Sisterhood become sharper, and she rediscovers the ability to feel emotions other than terror and resignation. But the bond between her and Lucía is tested as the Superior Sister brings her terrible ministrations to bear, and each must hold tight to the other if they hope to find something worth surviving for. Moses’s translation is marvelous, capturing the lush lyricism with which Bazterrica describes the most harrowing extremes of human experience. Calling to mind Cormac McCarthy and Chelsea G. Summers, this is as beautiful as it is brutal. Agent: Barbara Graham, Schavelzon Graham Agencia.
February 1, 2025
As the world dies, the remnants of the patriarchy and their minions keep right on terrorizing the weak. Caustically original in the same fashion as her chillingTender Is the Flesh (2020), Bazterrica's latest devises an end-of-the-world scenario with aHandmaid's Tale vibe. The most palpable tragedy is that no matter how the world dies, women always seem to end up with the same sorry fortune. The story is set in an unknown wasteland where all the animals on Earth have perished, with callouts to a mysterious, poisonous haze and a collapsed world. Our narrator is a young woman relegated to sheltering in the House of the Sacred Sisterhood, an isolated, fundamentalist order subservient to an unseen, deity-like "He," and divided into strict castes. Among these are the Enlightened, kept isolated from the rest of the order behind a mysterious black door; the Chosen, divine and devoted prophets who are ritually mutilated; and the servants marked by contamination, who sit just below the narrator's caste, the unworthy young women. The story is a little tough to follow due to the narrator's fragmented memory, not to mention lots of interruptions from the old ultraviolence and body horror. Although men are banned from the cloistered stronghold, it's a relentlessly sadistic and violent society ruled by the Superior Sister, enforcer of His will and the instrument of punishment up to and including torture and death. The narrator is already mourning Helena, a spirited iconoclast who couldn't survive under such oppression, when a new arrival named Luc�a sparks fresh hope that may prove as fruitless as everything else in this bleak testament to suffering. As a subversion of expectations and an indictment of unchecked power, it's unflinching and provocative, but readers expecting a satisfying denouement may be left wanting. A somber reflection on an increasingly hostile world.
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Starred review from February 1, 2025
Bazterrica's absorbing feminist literary horror novel (previously available only in Spanish) stars an unnamed narrator who documents her deplorable situation in an illicit diary as a survivor living in a converted monastery. Climate chaos and environmental deterioration coupled with lawlessness have forced many to fend for themselves. She is one of a number of women seeking refuge in a twisted hierarchical commune in an unnamed city. It is governed by a tyrannical woman posing as a pseudo prioress alongside her brother. Referred to only as Him, he is the only male allowed in the premises. The unnamed narrator is part of the Unworthy, a group designated just above servitude and beneath the Chosen Ones (who are mercilessly mutilated for this privilege), while the highest order, the Enlightened, are kept sequestered and act as conduits to a higher power. Bazterrica is in her element dramatizing the violent and atrocious acts that the residents of the community are subjected to and, in turn, inflict on each other. The arrival of a mysterious young woman who can perform inexplicable feats unshackles the narrator from her subjugation, which exacts a steep price. This satirical horror is incisive and convincing as it skewers religious fervor and blind obedience.
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