Cecilia Eudave, among Latin America's literary vanguard of "narrativa de lo inusual" (narrative of the unusual) makes her English-language debut with the haunting novel The Summer of the Serpent, translated from the Spanish by National Book Award winner Robin Myers. Reminiscent of interlinked short stories, Eudave's work presents a polyphonic chorus, many of the voices quite young, who are all residents of an unnamed Mexican neighborhood, as they reveal their versions of what happened during that summer of 1977.
That "was an unforgettable year," Maricarmen, the precocious initial narrator, comments, listing global events, lumping together Augusto Pinochet, Son of Sam, Elvis Presley. "And here, in Mexico? The National Family Planning Plan was approved, because we were so many and so violent." She's "still a little girl" visiting the San Antonio Parish fair with her father and younger sister, where she's "a front-row witness to the spectacle of the serpent girl." After the show, Maricarmen begs her father to have her fortune told by the mysterious ophidian, who cryptically prophesizes, "Gaze beyond what's in plain sight, be guided by the serpent's eyes."
Shrouded within this veneer of a seemingly typical community are unexpected inhabitants. One house is home to a "sweetly chameleonic" ghost who first tells the story of a "chubby baby-faced man" who hangs, but somehow doesn't kill, his fox terrier at 7 p.m. every day, except for Sundays. Uriel, two doors down from Maricarmen, records the (in)human/canine schedule as part of his summer "research project." Monika, another neighbor, has a pet boa constrictor that's carefully planning its escape, even as it's admired and occasionally coveted by the local children. Among the few adults mentioned are Maricarmen's parents--her aspiring writer father who instead translates technical manuals, her "high-profile journalist" mother; local sweeper Capi, who sleeps overnight in the auto repair shop along with his dog, Wolf; retired movie star Señora Amelia, whose anger is missed when she's gone.
Eudave shifts viewpoints between her nine chapters, as if determined to further unsettle readers. Recurring names and situational details serve as puzzle pieces that readers may shift and twist while attempting to fit them together. As the larger narrative coalesces, the results agitate and discomfit. Eudave unblinkingly contrasts the innocence of children not yet aware that people can and will commit senseless evil with the heinous behaviors in their midst particularly threatening girls and young women. Eudave's startling fiction effectively holds a twisted funhouse mirror up to reveal disturbing realities. --Terry Hong
Shelf Talker: Notable Mexican author Cecilia Eudave's debut-in-English-translation is a polyphonic mosaic of voices narrating the disturbing events of the strange summer of 1977.