Staff Pick
How is this the first time I am reading Amparo Dávila? And when can I read more from her? In these stories, she creates creates claustrophobic worlds in miniature and populates them with people tormented by things we can't see. Whether she is writing about a wife whose husband brings home a ravenous and frightening guest, a young woman plagued by a not-completely-unwelcome visitor in the night, or a family held hostage by their possibly monstrous son, the horror is subtle — more is suggested than told. Often coupled with these very real terrors is the knowledge that their experiences will be doubted. It is easier for these characters to stay silent than to try and explain the shadowy, strange things that stalk them. Brief and terrifying, The Houseguest leaves one feeling that nothing is solid, that reality is a precarious and ever-changing thing, and that it doesn't take much to render the ordinary unrecognizable. Recommended By Lauren P., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Like those of Kafka, Poe, Leonora Carrington, or Shirley Jackson, Amparo Dávila's stories are terrifying, mesmerizing, and expertly crafted — you'll finish each one gasping for air. With acute psychological insight, Dávila follows her characters to the limits of desire, paranoia, insomnia, and fear. She is a writer obsessed with obsession, who makes nightmares come to life through the everyday: loneliness sinks in easily like a razor-sharp knife, some sort of evil lurks in every shadow, delusion takes the form of strange and very real creatures. After reading The Houseguest — Dávila's debut collection in English — you'll wonder how this secret was kept for so long.
Review
“Filled with nightmarish imagery and creeping dread, Dávila's stories plunge into the nature of fear: Terrifying.” — Publishers Weekly
Review
“Like Poe for the new millennium.” — Kirkus
Review
“Each of these stories is equal parts Hitchcock film and razor blade: austere, immaculately crafted, profoundly unsettling, and capable of cutting you. Amparo Dávila is Kafka by way of Ogawa, Aira by way of Carrington, Cortazár by way of Somers, and I'm so grateful she's in translation.” — Carmen Maria Machado
About the Author
Amparo Dávila was born in Mexico in 1928. She has published numerous collections of short stories and for a time worked as Alfonso Reyes's secretary. In recent years a massive resurgence of interest has acknowledged her as one of Mexico's finest masters of the short story. She was awarded the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 1977 and honored with the Medalla Bellas Artes in 2015.
A former Mellon Public Scholar, Audrey Harris holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from the University of California.
Kelsey Ford on PowellsBooks.Blog
I love short story collections because of how much they manage to do with so little. They can dilate, expand, shatter, constellate. Within any given collection, you can move from the moon to a diner after midnight to that liminal minute right when you wake up but are still knee-deep in a dream..
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