Synopses & Reviews
New novel from the author of Four by Four exploring a single relationship existing outside of society's norms.
Casi, who is almost fourteen years old, has been skipping school and spending her days hidden among the hedges in a local park, listening to music and reading women's magazines. One day, Viejo, a fifty-year-old man, stumbles upon her hiding place, and the two strike up a friendship. He tells her about birds and Nina Simone, buys her soda and chips, and spends almost every day talking with her.
Despite their age gap, there's something childlike about Viejo that leads Casi to believe that he's not like the other men she's encountered, the "dangerous ones." But Viejo has a number of secrets in his past — all of which would be of grave concern to Casi's parents or any other adult who witnessed one of their rendezvous. As these secrets rise to the surface, the clock is ticking, the weather is growing cold and the school is untangling Casi's set of lies, setting up a moment where something has to give.
With spare, direct prose, Sara Mesa imbues these two outcasts with a great deal of warmth, raising questions about society's prejudices and assumptions, and creating a truly moving novel of an "inappropriate" relationship.
Review
"When you find yourself caught in the spiderweb of Sara Mesa’s fiction, you wonder how she does it, what the substance is that glues you to her books — that asphalt that impregnates you while you’re reading as well as hours and days after you have closed the book. With Among the Hedges it happens again." Carlos Zanón, Babelia, El País (Book of the Week)
Review
"What is fascinating about Sara Mesa is her ability to map the human condition through losers, the abuse of power, oppressive and isolated places, the slow and continuous degradation. That’s why her novels are so interesting: because they are always rough, bitter, sincere, dark, unpleasant and slow." Ángeles López, La Razón
Review
"Among the Hedges is pure Sara Mesa, though with a new touch of melancholy. A disturbing and provocative novel." Luisgé Martín
Review
"A very literary novel due to the wise use of narrative times. The chiaroscuros are better at explaining the human being and literature was born to remind us of this. A much-needed novel for our times." José María Pozuelo Yvancos, Abc Cultural
Review
"A couple of characters who meet when perhaps they shouldn’t have, and that make us question our own prejudices, the labels we put on others and our own notions of normality." Eva Piquer, Ara
About the Author
Sara Mesa is the author of eight works of fiction, including Scar (winner of the Ojo Critico Prize), Four by Four (a finalist for the Herralde Prize), An Invisible Fire (winner of the Premio Málaga de Novela), Among the Hedges, and Un amor. Her works have been translated into more than ten different languages, and she has been widely praised for her concise, sharp writing style.
Megan McDowell has translated many of the most important Latin American writers working today, including Samanta Schweblin and Alejandro Zambra. Her translations have won the English PEN award and the Premio Valle-Inclán, and been nominated three times for the International Booker Prize. Her short story translations have been featured in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Tin House, McSweeney's, and Granta, among others. In 2020 she won an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Santiago, Chile.