In its place, Melchor’s prose-careening sentences with shifting points of view that swerve in and out of registers and assault every sensibility-propels the reader forward, gaining ever-increasing momentum. In this way, the novel seems to lack narratological coherence. Instead of providing linearity, Melchor develops her story through polyphony, with each chapter representing the voice of a different character. What follows is a raw, ribald, and riveting detective novel that unfolds in seven chapters. The first chapter, which consists of little more than one page, introduces us to the “troop,” a ragtag group of five boys, “caked in mud up to their shins” (more about this later) that stumble upon the murdered body of the Witch. Structurally, the novel is divided into eight untitled chapters, each consisting of a single paragraph. Sánchez Prado tell us, from an Angolan slave trader named Francisco de la Matosa, its linguistic similarity to mata (bush or plant-the word mata appears in the novel’s fourth line) and the verb matar (to kill) adds curious, if unintentional, layers of meaning. While the town gets its name, as Ignacio M. The novel’s story unfolds in the town of La Matosa, in the state of Veracruz. In 2019, of Mexico’s thirty-two states, Veracruz ranked seventh, registering 2,161 murders, a statistic that does not reflect the hundreds of forced disappearances that occur annually. The trope that unites her work, both journalistic and fictional, which reaches its apex in this novel, is the violence-in particular femicide-of her native state of Veracruz. Published in 2017 by Literatura Random House, it represents a harmonious melding of journalism and fiction, absent the autofiction popular among many of her contemporaries.

Hurricane Season ( Temporada de huracanes in Spanish) is Melchor’s second novel.

Her first book, Aquí no es Miami (2013 This is not Miami), a collection of crónicas, served as a bridge between journalism and her first novel, Falsa liebre (2013 False hare). All of the characters are invented.” An apt forewarning that what the reader is about to discover is at best a fictionized account of reality.Ī native of Veracruz, Mexican novelist Fernanda Melchor graduated from the Universidad Veracruzana with a degree in journalism, a craft she practiced before turning to fiction writing. It reads: “Some of the events described here are real. OF THE TWO EPIGRAPHS that appear at the beginning of Hurricane Season, the second is taken from Mexican author Jorge Ibargüengoitia’s novel The Dead Girls.

Hurricane season melchor review