Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by ghostboyreads
No Place to Bury the Dead: A Novel by Karina Sainz Borgo
4.0
"Sand had muted the light, and wind needled in our ears, a moan that seemed to rise through fissures in the ground. That breeze was a warning, a dense, strange dust storm, like madness or pain. The end of the world was a mountain of dust, formed from the bones we had left behind on our journey here."
No Place to Bury the Dead is perhaps one of the bleakest, most volatile and depressing pieces of fiction that I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Sadness seems to entirely envelop the text, and melancholy hangs heavy over each page. Despair, violence and utter hopelessness are the backbone of this novel, making each of the incredibly short chapters feel like being repeatedly punched in the face. The plot of No Place to Bury the Dead is a gritty and sorrowful one, one that's completely filled with brutality and heartbreak, but, also, absolutely masterful storytelling. Karina Sainz Borgo has crafted something magical, something otherworldly and ethereal here, this is, truly, a fantastic novel. It may be an entire world away from anything I'd typically read, but, it felt vital to experience.
It's absolutely beautifully written, the prose is completely fucking stunning, it's remarkable how vibrant, how vivid of a novel this is for something so bleak and devastating. Everything that I find worthy of adoration in Latin stories is on display here. No Place to Bury the Dead paints a stunning yet stark portrait of an unnamed Latin American country, it gifts a voice to often overlooked and undervalued lives, and it does so with such elegance that, it's truly beyond words. It's a powerful and riveting thing, at times so visceral and raw that it feels like bearing witness to something you shouldn't be, like gazing upon a car crash or, worse, being a part of the collision. Sheer brilliance of this level is a rarity, a scarce commodity to be cherished.
No Place to Bury the Dead is perhaps one of the bleakest, most volatile and depressing pieces of fiction that I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Sadness seems to entirely envelop the text, and melancholy hangs heavy over each page. Despair, violence and utter hopelessness are the backbone of this novel, making each of the incredibly short chapters feel like being repeatedly punched in the face. The plot of No Place to Bury the Dead is a gritty and sorrowful one, one that's completely filled with brutality and heartbreak, but, also, absolutely masterful storytelling. Karina Sainz Borgo has crafted something magical, something otherworldly and ethereal here, this is, truly, a fantastic novel. It may be an entire world away from anything I'd typically read, but, it felt vital to experience.
It's absolutely beautifully written, the prose is completely fucking stunning, it's remarkable how vibrant, how vivid of a novel this is for something so bleak and devastating. Everything that I find worthy of adoration in Latin stories is on display here. No Place to Bury the Dead paints a stunning yet stark portrait of an unnamed Latin American country, it gifts a voice to often overlooked and undervalued lives, and it does so with such elegance that, it's truly beyond words. It's a powerful and riveting thing, at times so visceral and raw that it feels like bearing witness to something you shouldn't be, like gazing upon a car crash or, worse, being a part of the collision. Sheer brilliance of this level is a rarity, a scarce commodity to be cherished.
"In the mountains, people believed in apparitions. Roads were dotted with crosses, Madonnas, and small cement alters topped with candles in memory of accident victims, a vigil of guttering flames in the gloom. The most dangerous curves inspired specters and legends: the woman in white here, the headless man there, the boy ghost, the adolescent who asked to be given a lift to the border. This last one was the most feared. It was said to be the soul in torment of a young man who tried, over and again, to hitch a ride along the stretch of road he was yet to travel the night he was run over."
It's a novel entirely consumed by grief, and it's all very dreamlike and surreal, a story of metaphors and imagination, the pandemic that fuels the narrative and the border crossings are not only literal but allegorical too, there's something so sinister and spectral about this book, reality and purgatory walk hand in hand here. Completely unflinching and uncompromising, No Place to Bury the Dead refuses to shy away from anything, it so richly displays its truth, and bares it soul for all to see. Everything about this novel is horrible, and crushing and because of what an immersive tale it is, it's so easy to be swept away by the tormenting nature of this story. Boundary blurring and harrowing, this is grief literature at its very best.
"Two German shepherds were barking, tied to a post. He could smell gasoline. The murmurs of a transistor radio and evangelical music could be heard over the cicadas. Maybe everyone had died, and this was a ghost chorus. The cages in the dog pen were empty, their gates thrown open. Tools, drums, and sealed boxes of fertilizer were heaped in the shed."