A review by katie_greenwinginmymouth
The Taiga Syndrome by Cristina Rivera Garza

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

A woman has gone missing, runaway with her lover. An ex-detective is sent to find her by the woman’s husband, she follows her to the taiga, a vast landscape of boreal forest that can send people mad with its endless sameness. From here things unravel into an uncanny fairytale noir that is infused with a deeply ominous feeling reflective of the remote forest setting.

The taiga is a huge area that spans the northern parts of Russia, Mongolia, Japan, Scandinavia, United States, Canada and Scotland. Despite the specificity of this landscape we are never told exactly where we are, what year it is, or what language people are speaking. This unanchored-ness replicates the feeling of being totally consumed by this seemingly infinite habitat.

Throughout the narrative the element of uncertainty is reinforced as the ex detective keeps reminding us that nothing happened exactly as it is written down in her report. She reads the woman’s journals as part of her investigation but notes how they “are written in an intimate code capable of escaping the reader’s - and often the writer’s - understanding.” There is also inevitably much lost in translation as the ex detective has travelled from another country to the taiga and works with an interpreter the two of them speaking in a shared second language.

There is a strong sense of foreboding throughout and ominous signs keep appearing - a wolf at the door, drawings of macabre objects, the sense of someone watching. The story becomes increasingly hallucinatory and time moves in a strange way - at the end it’s really uncertain how long the ex detective has been away, maybe months, maybe years. Unsurprisingly the ending is strange and inconclusive. I loved it.