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A review by jdscott50
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríquez
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-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
A father (Juan) and son (Gaspar) go on a road trip to spread their mother's ashes, who recently died in a car accident. His family is insistent they stop to see them. The trip is arduous due to Juan's heart condition. Furthermore, there are hints that all is not what it seems. Juan is actually a medium. He can summon the dark forces of hell on command. They are traveling to see his family, who have been guardians of this ritual for hundreds of years. A family greedy with power with the hopes that this ritual will make them immortal and wealthy. With Juan's ill health, they want to continue to use him to open the portal. Their hopes are that his five-year-old son will take on the legacy, but if he doesn't develop powers, they plan to transfer Juan's consciousness into his son. Juan has difficult choices to protect his son against these dark forces.
With horror at its center, Enriquez brilliantly makes allegories to power and corruption in Argentina. The Dirty War was a dark time in the nation's history, including mass executions, disappearances, and other atrocities. It is these very atrocities that tie into the order's power. Juan being near death and the country in a sort of near-death open portals to hell, with Enriquez suggesting Hell on Earth and Hell is only as thin as a door. There are also aspects of community shame in both instances. A father lamenting he cannot share things with his son, his share of night.
Favorite Passages:
The Darkness asked for bodies—as the excuse she gave. But that wasn't true. The Darkness didn't ask for anything, and Juan knew it. In the Order, Mercedes was the firmest believer in the exercise of cruelty and perversion as the path to secret illumination. Juan believed, moreover, that she considered amorality to be a mark of class. The further away she got from moral convention, she thought, the more apparent her inborn superiority became.
Ghosts are real. And the ones who come aren’t always the one you’ve called.
"...he took Gaspar's face in his hands, leaned down to look him in the eyes, and caressed his hair, the box on the ground between them, and he said, You have something of mine, I passed on something of me to you, and hopefully it isn't cursed, I don't konw if I can leave you something that isn't dirty, that isn't dark, our share of night." p 232
Being and orphan meant bearing ashes p 307
What I learned over the years is that the nation of affluence is monotonous. The properties, the land, the companies that others manage for us, the old, dark houses and the new, luminous ones, the leather skin of women who spend summers in the south of France or Spain or Italy, the silver, the Gobelines tapestries, the paintings, the art collections, the gardens, the people who work for us about whom we know nothing. Doesn't matter if Buenos Aires or London. It doesn't matter either that our families are founders of the Order. Being rich makes us like all rich people. Being founders of the Order differentiates us from the whole world. p245
That is also what it is to be rich: that contempt for beauty and the refusal to offer even the dignity of a name. 245
All fortunes are built on the suffering of others, and ours, though it has unique and astonishing characteristics, is no exception. p 245
Only the mediums can summon this Darkness that speaks and that will help us live forever, help us walk like the gods. Mortals are the past, Florence once said to me. It took a long time for the method of survial to be revealed, and it is, of course, repugnant. I should also add that, so far, it's not only repugnant but also a resounding failure. There is no arguing with faith, though. And it's impossible to disbelieve when the Darkness comes. So, we trust, and we go on. At least, many of us do. Others are sick with doubt.
With horror at its center, Enriquez brilliantly makes allegories to power and corruption in Argentina. The Dirty War was a dark time in the nation's history, including mass executions, disappearances, and other atrocities. It is these very atrocities that tie into the order's power. Juan being near death and the country in a sort of near-death open portals to hell, with Enriquez suggesting Hell on Earth and Hell is only as thin as a door. There are also aspects of community shame in both instances. A father lamenting he cannot share things with his son, his share of night.
Favorite Passages:
The Darkness asked for bodies—as the excuse she gave. But that wasn't true. The Darkness didn't ask for anything, and Juan knew it. In the Order, Mercedes was the firmest believer in the exercise of cruelty and perversion as the path to secret illumination. Juan believed, moreover, that she considered amorality to be a mark of class. The further away she got from moral convention, she thought, the more apparent her inborn superiority became.
Ghosts are real. And the ones who come aren’t always the one you’ve called.
"...he took Gaspar's face in his hands, leaned down to look him in the eyes, and caressed his hair, the box on the ground between them, and he said, You have something of mine, I passed on something of me to you, and hopefully it isn't cursed, I don't konw if I can leave you something that isn't dirty, that isn't dark, our share of night." p 232
Being and orphan meant bearing ashes p 307
What I learned over the years is that the nation of affluence is monotonous. The properties, the land, the companies that others manage for us, the old, dark houses and the new, luminous ones, the leather skin of women who spend summers in the south of France or Spain or Italy, the silver, the Gobelines tapestries, the paintings, the art collections, the gardens, the people who work for us about whom we know nothing. Doesn't matter if Buenos Aires or London. It doesn't matter either that our families are founders of the Order. Being rich makes us like all rich people. Being founders of the Order differentiates us from the whole world. p245
That is also what it is to be rich: that contempt for beauty and the refusal to offer even the dignity of a name. 245
All fortunes are built on the suffering of others, and ours, though it has unique and astonishing characteristics, is no exception. p 245
Only the mediums can summon this Darkness that speaks and that will help us live forever, help us walk like the gods. Mortals are the past, Florence once said to me. It took a long time for the method of survial to be revealed, and it is, of course, repugnant. I should also add that, so far, it's not only repugnant but also a resounding failure. There is no arguing with faith, though. And it's impossible to disbelieve when the Darkness comes. So, we trust, and we go on. At least, many of us do. Others are sick with doubt.