Distancia de rescate by Samanta Schweblin

The dialogue between Amanda and David is set in the present while the one between Amanda and Carla is set a few days earlier-but each dialogue is, in a sense, about the other. David got sick six years ago, she tells Amanda-and as Amanda, in turn, relates Carla’s story to David, “Fever Dream” assumes two simultaneous tracks. Crying against the steering wheel, Carla starts to explain why she’s so afraid of her own son. This is when Schweblin, who was chosen last year by Granta as one of the best Spanish-language writers under the age of thirty-five, sets the novel’s difficult technical trick in motion. “Do you think we could be close to the exact moment when the worms are born?” “Carla leans her forehead against the steering wheel and her shoulders start to shake a little she’s crying,” Amanda says. It’s very important, it’s very important for us all.” (The book has no narration outside the two voices Schweblin uses italics to denote whether David or Amanda is speaking.) And while we wait, we have to find the exact moment when the worms come into being. Amanda can’t move, and David explains, “ It’s the worms. The speakers are a woman in a hospital bed, named Amanda, and a young boy-not hers-named David, who kneels beside her and forces her to recount a series of recent events. The entire novel is an unbroken dialogue extruding from a void. “Fever Dream” is structured like a play, one that would require two actors and very little movement. By the time I finished the book, I couldn’t bring myself to look out the windows. I was checking the locks in my apartment by page thirty. (Alejandro Zambra’s graceful “The Private Lives of Trees,” also translated by McDowell, is a standout within this group.) I picked up “Fever Dream” in the wee hours, and a low, sick thrill took hold of me as I read it. It’s a slim book, and it belongs to the category of short, impressionistic novels best consumed in a single sitting. The book is a translation, by Megan McDowell, of the Argentinian writer Samanta Schweblin’s novel “ Distancia de Rescate,” from 2014. No previous book, at least, has filled me with unease the way “ Fever Dream” did. Hundreds of novels have flooded me with heartbreak or compassion, but very few-maybe none-have made me feel libidinous or spooked.

Fiction is remarkably effective when it comes to provoking certain visceral reactions, and notoriously ham-fisted when it comes to others.

Distancia de rescate by Samanta Schweblin