Not a River by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott: IB 2024

[@ianp9086]

Good to have you back for a while! I have read the other two which were very good, and her non fiction book Dead Girls too. Excellent author.

[@thebobsphere7553]

Thanks! And agreed

[@benreadingbooks]

I agree with you, the people who can immediately dismiss a longlist as disappointing, without even needing to read the books, are amazing.

[@Djcooksandbooks]

I really liked Not a River too! Definitely want to read the other two in the trilogy!

[@thebobsphere7553]

Go for it!!

[@littlejohnuk]

I found this rather important as a book - quite dark energies while being very sunny and hot. It's a tight vibe.

[@thebobsphere7553]

Agreed

[@michaelsimpson952]

My native language is Spanish and literally I was forced to switch halfway through the book to the English version to understand what I was reading. Argentine terminology reaches its peak, to the point that it seemed like a completely different dialect to me. Annie McDermott's task of translating the text into English was titanic. Added to this was the way of delimiting dialogues, the shifts between past, present, and future, the timeless episodes, the overlapping of stories, the non-delimitation of chapters. A challenge that at the end of the book would leave me wondering what the hell did I just read?

[@thebobsphere7553]

Wow! Interesting!

[@art_and_bibliophilia]

I had my eye on Brickmakers, but I think you suggested The Wind That Lays Waste to me, if I'm not mistaken. I don't need to have read those two to get to Not a River, right?

[@thebobsphere7553]

It's like the Eva Baltasar novels - they are just united by a theme and the writing style evolves from book to book. I think Wind.. is the strongest.