"Our Share of Night," by Mariana Enríquez

🍂 It's October, so why not go with a horror selection? If you like reading translated literature, this'll be a doubly satisfying read. The author's talent and skill has thrust her into the forefront of Latin American literature and captured the attention of the Booker Prize Committee, Kirkus, the LA Times, and a slew of other global readers. This continents-spanning historical-fiction tale is just under 600 pages long, while offering allegorical social commentary on some darker times in the more recent past. Will this selection get you in a Halloween-ish mood? 🎃

From Goodreads:

A woman’s mysterious death puts her husband and son on a collision course with her demonic family.

A young father and son set out on a road trip, devastated by the death of the wife and mother they both loved. United in grief, the pair travel to her ancestral home, where they must confront the terrifying legacy she has bequeathed: a family called the Order that commits unspeakable acts in search of immortality.

For Gaspar, the son, this maniacal cult is his destiny. As the Order tries to pull him into their evil, he and his father take flight, attempting to outrun a powerful clan that will do anything to ensure its own survival. But how far will Gaspar’s father go to protect his child? And can anyone escape their fate?

Moving back and forth in time, from London in the swinging 1960s to the brutal years of Argentina’s military dictatorship and its turbulent aftermath, Our Share of Night is a novel like no other: a family story, a ghost story, a story of the occult and the supernatural, a book about the complexities of love and longing with queer subplots and themes. This is the masterwork of one of Latin America’s most original novelists, “a mesmerizing writer,” says Dave Eggers, “who demands to be read.”