Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Hurricane Season

Squalor. Destitution. Hatred. Lust. Greed. Corruption. Jealousy. Bitterness. Misery. Just a handful of words evoked by the setting and characters of Fernanda Melchor’s Hurricane Season.

Beginning and ending in a distant third— at one point shifting seamlessly from close third, to first person, to the style of a police report, and back to close third— this novel is divided into chapters that center characters all connected by the common thread of Luismi, one of La Matosa’s young men known for taking too many pills and being the Witch’s lover: Yesenia, Luismi’s cousin; Munra, his stepfather; Norma, his girlfriend; and Brando, a friend in his circle. And oh— “the Witch,” the Mexican town’s ostracized, black-clad spellwoman, is dead, found floating face up in an irrigation canal with a slashed throat.

Really, this narrative is not about her at all, but about the innate vileness of humanity, about the gross biases that a machismo-centered culture creates for those who exist outside of it. Melchor presents the taboo in a particularly interesting way, as though La Matosa has determined certain correct and incorrect ways of engagement; Chabela, Luismi’s mother, takes pride in her profession but shames other sex workers who operate differently from her; sexual relationships between men are acceptable only if they meet certain social criteria.

Most of this novel is page-long sentences dripping with vitriol and malice, as the characters’ individual traumas, more than the circumstances of the witch’s murder, are laid bare. Hurricane Season is a difficult read, one I was reluctant to pick up for how emotionally taxing it is, but if you feel compelled to read it, as I did for many months, do so.

Content Warnings

creamturnedsour's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

gchodzen's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

eleanorjmca's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This is a savage, very bleak book about cycles of violence and pain, centred on one small community; ultimately it is about powerless people, extremely poor, controlled by drugs and gangs and money problems and superstitions and fear above all, who accrue tiny amounts of power to themselves by means of violence against other powerless people. Men, in particular, are the primary aggressors, with women the primary victims, but there is always a sense in which the greater aggressor is off screen, elsewhere, maybe at the Oil Company or even far away in another country. It is a loveless book, full of people desperately looking for affection and approval and vindication, as well as sexual pleasure, but unable to engage with anything in a non-violent way; the close relationship between love and violence runs through the whole book, culminating in the final scene when

the dead bodies receive the most genuinely affectionate words in the book from the gravedigger, having finally "escaped" from the world of suffering

.

This book's best quality is the author's incredible use of language, and the translator's skill in rendering it. The dense text (no paragraph breaks) and eternal run on sentences were off-putting at first, but soon made the book difficult to put down! The technique of going on a journey in each chapter through a particular character's train of thought, memories etc is very compelling. I also loved how the picture of what had happened on the night of the crime, and what had caused it, gradually came into focus through the perspectives of different characters. I have only ust finished this book and I want to go back and read it again!

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valenblr's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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