“A Sunny Place for Shady People,” by Mariana Enriquez, translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell. (Hogarth, 272 pages) In the 1970s and 1980s, during Argentina’s so-called “Guerra sucia” — “Dirty War” — a fascist military junta ruled with a bloody fist, executing tens of thousands of citizens. That nation’s writers still grapple with this heinous legacy, the great Mariana Enriquez at the forefront.
Translated by the prodigious Megan McDowell, Enriquez’s new “A Sunny Place for Shady People” oozes horror tropes — gore, ghosts, monsters, haunted towns, roadside shrines to obscure saints— that reflect the atrocities we inflict on each other. Hers is a Gothic vision on steroids, and yet more is more. A divorced physician narrates “My Sad Dead,” conversing with the deceased, reminiscent of M.
Night Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense.” The title story, set in Los Angeles, evokes Skid Row and the sadistic serial killer Richard Ramirez. Enriquez twists and maims her characters with abandon, manipulating them like a skilled puppeteer.
“Face of Disgrace” experiments with a roving point of view, flipping between first- and third-person while unraveling the long tail of a vicious crime — the rape of a 14-year-old girl — and its disfiguring trauma across generations. Alex, the protagonist, and brother Diego stare in stunned disbelief as her face literally erases — nose, mouth, eyes — exposing a deeper emotional blight: “The years-long anger t.