Reviews with content warning for Murder - Things We Lost in the Fire

This one got me out of a tiny slump. Short stories are always a good choice for me if I want to get back into a good reading habit again, and short stories with a tense atmosphere are certainly a plus. I think I’d describe this one as dark magical realism, bordering on horror. Horror isn’t really my thing, but I can dig dark magical realism, so for the most part this one hit the right spot.

You must be prepared to feel uneasy and a little uncomfortable at times, and that counts both for the supernatural/magical realism aspects and for the realistic ones, as Things We Lost in the Fire is also very much social criticism. Argentinian history and culture is for the most part unknown to me, and I love learning about a country through stories; in my opinion, you don’t at all need long explanations of traditions and customs – in fact, I often get a better feel of a country’s or area’s atmosphere if I’m plunged right into it.

In many ways, this one actually reminded me of What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky (though Things We Lost is certainly a lot darker) – both collections have magical realism aspects, both introduced me to cultures I didn’t know much of beforehand, and the writing styles are slightly similar – very direct and matter-of-fact, which I *love* – though in my opinion Arimah, author of What It Means, is still in a league of her own.

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katie_greenwinginmymouth's review

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challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

So glad to have finally got round to reading these stories. I really appreciate writing where horror or genre tropes are used to explore and expose actual real life horror - in this case that of a country that has been brutalised by decades of violent dictatorship. These elements of the stories are so well done and are rooted in Argentina’s religious and spiritual traditions. The stories are genuinely unsettling and rightly so. There is a really strong sense of place throughout and the unforgiving nature of the landscape and the climate is often referenced - at one point the humidity is described “as if a brutal arm were wound round your waist and squeezing.” I was struck by how many of the stories featured vile, useless or abusive men and how much that said about the pervasiveness of toxic masculinity. “Under the Black Water” might have been my favourite one for its brilliant commentary on police brutality, environmental degradation and society’s prejudice against and fear of marginalised communities. It is darkly carnivalesque and burrows deep under your skin.

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internationalreads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.0

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chiaralzr's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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linnkaren's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

mackenzi's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Reading this book was like the author taking me into a little apartment and sitting me down on a couch or at an intimate little table. She brings in a box, an old shoebox or a little decorative wooden box, and opens it up and it's full of time-faded photographs and polaroids. She takes them out one by one, tells me the name of the person in it as she looks at the dates and little notes written on them in all sorts of different handwritings. 1979, 1991, 1983, 1999- I try to imagine what each year might mean but it's hard for me to imagine a place I don't know well during a time I didn't exist yet. It's a thrill to get to peek in at these lives I'd have never otherwise known, but none of the people in the photos seem happy, and I'm filled with apprehension.

She tells me a story about each photo, a story she heard from a friend or a grandparent. Some of the names are the same from photograph to photograph, and I wonder if they're ever the same people displaced a little by time, still finding their way into stranger's photos just to be lost again. The stories are all a little sad, melancholic for their world-weariness, and all are frightening. Some scare me because ghosts scare me like they scare a child, some are scary because the world is just that way and I feel helpless about it.

Each story ends, abruptly, her voice fading into silence as she sets the photo on the table, making a little pile that she's already gone through. I ask what happened to the person, what happened next, and she shrugs, she doesn't know. So each story lingers, because my mind craves completion, resolution- but if you've ever stumbled onto old photos in an antique store, you know there's no resolution. You can stare at the faces in the pictures all day and never know who they really were. And each story haunts because there seems like a world of things in that story, and I want to sift through each one to try and find the meaning, the lesson, the history, the knowledge of someone who might have lived it for real.

But they're still just photographs and eventually she runs out of them, and she's putting them back in the box and she's taking the box away again, and I'm left with a handful of memories that feel startlingly real.

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