A review by cozylifewithabby
Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin

4.0

 
Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin (translated by Megan McDowell) is a short story collection that was originally published in 2010 and translated into English in 2019. As with all short story collections, some stories really stood out to me, and then there were those that I did not enjoy as much. The stories in this book are abstract and strange. They take real life and focus on or highlight something until it becomes bizarre and warped. I know that the author also writes horror and some of the stories gravitate toward that. They weave magical realism into alternate realities and the stories have a hypnotic quality to them. Below I have ranked the stories from my favorite to least favorite with little descriptions of each. I am not sure if I will read her other work as I am not a horror fan, but this work is worth checking out. 
  • Preserves: A young couple is not quite ready to start a family.
  • Headlights: Women are abandoned by their husbands on the side of the road over and over again. 
  • Mouthful of Birds: What would you do if your daughter started eating live birds? 
  • The Heavy Suitcase of Benavides: What does it mean to be an artist? 
  • Butterflies: Explores parenting and the impact we have on our children. 
  • The Underground: An entire village of children go missing 
  • Santa Claus Sleeps out Our House: Explores infidelity, depression, and poverty through the eyes of a child. 
  • The Rage of Pestilence: Hunger 
  • On the Steppe: What if what you long for isn’t what you think?
  • The Size of Things: A man lives at a toy shop and reverts to childhood. 
  • The Merman: Controlling relationships and the problem of putting life off for another day. 
  • Towards Happy Civilization: A man waits for a train that never stops
  • Irman: Reminiscent of Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants, but actually about death
  • A Great Effort: Therapy and Parenting 
  • Slowing Down: A man’s death 
  • My Brother Walter: Depression, Family
  • The Digger: A man digs a hole, but for what purpose? 
  • The Test: What makes us human? What is the value of human life? 
  • Heads Against Concrete: What is art? What is friendship? How does racism and bias shape us? 
  • Olingiris: Very strange. I don’t think I understood it.