The Renaissance of Horror Fiction

Horror fiction has a long and colorful history. Originating from ancient times, it emerged from lush folkloric traditions originally meant to instigate fear; even the Bible had elements of horror. It also took root in religious traditions and practices involving death, evil, and the afterlife. From these literary traditions, the genre slowly revolved involving supernatural beings such as ghosts, vampires, banshees, demons, werewolves, and witches, among others. However, the genre does not necessarily entail the incorporation of supernatural elements, elements that have become prevalent in modern horror fiction. Beyond ghosts and vampires, horror fiction also addresses more realistic psychological fears.

From its rich traditional beginnings, the genre took a more defined shape in the eighteenth century, with the emergence of Gothic fiction. It is widely considered that Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1765) is the first work of Gothic fiction. The genre would continue to revolve. Among the most popular works of the genre are Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein, Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. Modern horror fiction has become synonymous with the works of Stephen King. That is where the line ends; beyond King, it is a challenge to find a name that continues this rich literary tradition. It was palpable how horror fiction witnessed a decline in the 1990s, with writers of the horror story exploring other prospects.

Recently, the genre seems to be experiencing a sort of a revival. Up-and-coming writers have been incorporating both supernatural and psychological elements of the genre into their works. Hardcore horror fiction is more prevalent and more imbibed in the works of female Latin American writers. This esteemed group includes Samanta Schweblin, Isabel Cañas, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Moreno-Garcia’s brand of Gothic fiction, in particular, soared during the height of the pandemic. The estate at the heart of her novel Mexican Gothic evokes the atmosphere of Rebecca’s Manderley while her novel Velvet Was the Night was listed by former US President Barack Obama in his 2022 Summer Reading List.

“Had he always been like that? It wasn’t shyness or reserve or adolescence, as other people thought. He wasn’t going to get over it. He could dance when he was alone, he could get emotional in his room with a book, but when the party started he disconnected, the others turned into a movie that he could watch but not participate in. So he acted like he was invisible, which wasn’t hard when everyone was drunk. And he withdrew into his room, where he felt the purest kind of relief.”

~ Mariana Enríquez, Our Share of Night
Of Horrors

Another female Latin American writer rebuilding the case for horror fiction is Schweblin’s countrywoman, Mariana Enríquez. Enríquez first earned the recognition of Anglophone readers with her two collections of short stories, Los peligros de fumar en la cama (2009, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, trans. 2021) and Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego (2016, Things We Lost in the Fire, trans. 2017). The former was even shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize. This growing recognition inevitably drew the spotlight on her full-length prose; she has published four novels. In 2022, her award-winning 2019 novel, Nuestra parte de noche, was released as Our Share of Night, making it her first novel to be translated into English.

Our Share of Night commenced in January 1981 with a road trip. Juan Peterson was in his late twenties and was recently widowed. His wife, Rosario, passed away under suspicious circumstances. In the wake of her death, Juan took his son Gaspar to the Argentinian countryside, to the estate owned by his in-laws in the province of Misiones. It was meant to be a healing trip and a trip to reconnect with Rosario’s trip. The relationship between the father and son is rather complicated. Early on, Juan, who narrated the majority of the book, warned his son that he was not a loving father. He further issued a caveat that Gaspar’s life is bound to change, not in wonderful ways but in horrible ways.

The story started to unfold in Rosario’s ancestral home. As soon as they started settling down, Juan and Gaspar were once again on the road. As the story moved forward, Enríquez clarified why they were fleeing from what seemed to be a safe haven. During their sojourn in Misiones, they uncovered a dark and secret family legacy. Rosario’s affluent family, they learned, was part of a secret society known as the Order. The cult was the product of late 19th-century British occultism. By the time Juan crossed paths with the cult, the Order had already consolidated power and was helmed by two families, the Reyes and the Bradfords. The cult was also known for communing with an entity they called the Darkness which required human sacrifices. The Darkness promised a path to eternal life for its members; immortality, however, was never directly referred to.

Of Horror Inching Closes

It was not the first time that Juan encountered the cult. With its continuously shifting timeline, the narrative transports the readers to the 1960s when Juan was still a sickly boy. He demonstrated abilities that were required by the cult. Juan was a powerful medium. Over the years, The Order enlisted the power of a long line of mediums. However, not one survived long enough until Juan came along. He was powerful enough to withstand the demands of the cult. He was bought from his parents and was made a part of the family. Juan was on the path to becoming the cult’s leader; he was indispensable to the Order. The cult’s leadership, however, did not take into account Juan falling in love with Rosario, thus, altering the course of their destiny.

“To her, love was impure. I, on the other hand, have had so little love that it seems to me like a delicate jewel, and I’m terrified of losing it. My fear is not just that I’ll misplace it, like an earring on a night of sex or sweaty dancing, it’s that it will evaporate and vanish like alcohol.”

~ Mariana Enríquez, Our Share of Night

Father and son were perpetually bonded by their grief but further complications arose when it was revealed that Gaspar inherited his father’s supernatural gift; their gifts allowed them to summon the Darkness during the Order’s horrendous rituals. Juan intuited this and so did his in-laws. The Order saw Gaspar’s abilities as a tool they can use to their advantage, by using it to malign politically powerful and influential groups they are opposed to. Juan, however, was determined to protect his son; he did not want the cult to indoctrinate his son with their evil teachings. Using Gaspar’s abilities also entailed Juan taking over his son’s consciousness, and in effect, destroying his son’s soul.

Gaspar, for his part, also refused to join the cult. With the cult slowly encroaching into their safe space, Juan and Gaspar once again found themselves in their car and driving away from a horrific place. Father and son have become, literally and metaphorically, the hunted and the haunted. There was a shift in narrative tone as the book approached its second half. From Juan, the steering wheel was passed to Gaspar. The novel charts Gaspar’s fortunes as he becomes a man. When he and his father evaded the Order’s tentacles, they were hoping to live normal lives. They wanted to build it based on their values, morals, and belief systems, away from the evil influences of the cult. Trying to resume his life normally, Gaspar met a girl and reconnected with his childhood friends.

Cultural touchstones were the antithesis of the horrific landscape conjured by Enríquez, rendering the novel different and interesting textures. The novel was riddled with scenes where characters engaged with actual works of art and literature. The works of American painter David Michael Wojnarowicz, for instance, were referred to. There were also allusions, and praises, to Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola’s The Palm-Wine Drinkard and American writer Zora Neale Hurston’s Tell My Horse. Highly heralded Argentine writers such as Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares were referenced in the story, and so were the poetry of Lord Byron and John Keats.  

Of Real Horrors

With its deep dive into the occult, the novel masquerades as a work of horror fiction. However, it does not reduce itself to a mere caricature as the horrors it captured reflect real horrors that Argentina has experienced. The Order and its atrocities flew under the radar because of the pandemonium taking place all over the country. During the time that the Order flourished from the 1970s to the 1980s, a period of political instability in the country. In 1976, a coup overthrew the democratically elected administration of Isabel Perón A military junta then installed Lieutenant General Jorge Rafaél Videla as the country’s president. This was a landscape Enríquez was familiar with as she grew up during this era.

“You’re not going to find me. There are always methods to change how a person feels, I only have to find the words. I can write them on my skin. Does the lion have scars? All your children have scars. I never wanted to die, because there’s not so much difference between death and life, Mother, you taught me that in this house and I learned it from the holes I dug, something died and it wasn’t so different.”

~ Mariana Enríquez, Our Share of Night

The junta consolidated power by closing the Congress, imposing censorship, and banning trade unions. Liberty was stymied, with state and municipal governments also brought under military control. The darkest of Videla’s policies, however, was the Process of National Reorganization, known subsequently as the Guerra Sucia (Dirty War). It was estimated that around 10,000 to 30,000 citizens were killed, often following their forceful incarceration and torture. The military was merciless in its imposition of the policy, discriminately eliminating any possible opposition and suspected subversives even sans any pieces of evidence to support their assertion. Mass slaughters and executions were prevalent. Up to this day, some families have no iota about what happened to their loved ones.

It was at this juncture that Enríquez’s fiction met reality. One character remarked, “Argentina has more than enough anonymous dead.” The shadows of the dictatorship blanketed the story. Beneath the estate owned by the Bradfords was an intricate system of secret tunnels which they allowed the government to use as prisons and torture chambers. Under the disguise of the forced disappearances, the Order was able to pick human sacrifices for the Darkness. Rosario’s sadist mother, Mercedes, oversaw the torture and dismemberment of the prisoners, most of whom were children. While Mercedes insisted that the sacrifices were made under the order of the Darkness, Juan vehemently refuted this claim.

The violence can get too close to comfort. Toward the end of the book, a mass grave is discovered, further underlining the atrocities of the regime. The images can be creepy and even disturbing at times, pushing the limits of the reader’s imagination; it is a caveat as the scenes can be discomfiting. Violence, in the world conjured by Enríquez, was not romanticized nor was it glamorized. The book never wavered from its message which remained clear all throughout the story: atrocities and violence will remain evil regardless of who the purveyors are. Evil actions are never a means to an end. Enríquez probed morality but her voice rarely careened on pontification.

Of Past and Present Horrors

Beyond the atrocities of the regime, the novel captured other subjects that play prominently in modern Argentina. Colonialism, white supremacy, and their consequences were extensively documented through the works of Rosario, an anthropologist whose studies specialized in the Guaraní, one of the many oppressed tribes. Along with the atrocities of the Order, Rosario’s research captured how colonizers – the families comprising the Order were of European descent who moved to Argentina for cheap land and opportunity – have pushed the natives beyond the brink, encroaching on their land and exploiting them for cheap labor. In a way, the Order was an extension of the underpinnings of colonialism and white supremacy.

“It was easy to get out of the city on a Sunday morning in January. Before he knew it the tall buildings were behind them, and then so were the low houses and tin lean-tos of the shantytowns on the city’s outskirts. And suddenly the trees of the countryside appeared. Gaspar was asleep by then, and Juan’s arm burned in the sun just like any regular father’s on a weekend of pools and picnics. But he wasn’t a regular father, and people could tell just by looking into his eyes or by talking to him for a while. Somehow, they recognized the danger: he couldn’t hide what he was. It wasn’t possible to hide something like that, at least not for long.“

~ Mariana Enríquez, Our Share of Night

With the novel moving across different time periods, it inevitably explored Argentina’s modern concerns. After all, time does not stop; domestic and national history will keep on flowing. Enríquez takes the readers to the streets of Buenos Aires to join protests against the new government’s programs. We also read how AIDS penetrated Gaspar’s social and family circles; woven into the novel’s lush tapestry was the subject of homosexuality. Labor unrest, hyperinflation, and the economic crises following the fall of the dictatorship provided a broader political and historical backdrop for the story. Memories and secrets were also important elements in the story.

In the lush tapestry that Enríquez adeptly wove together, wealth, power, and evil figured prominently. They were the primary factors that steered the narrative forward. While these are elements that have been recurrent in other books and films, Enríquez gave an astounding account that brings the spotlight to her country of birth’s contemporary history. She touches on seminal historical phases rarely captured in fiction, at least, from the Anglophone reader’s perspective. While Enríquez’s storytelling and vivid imagery held the story together, the novel, at times, crumbles on the weight of the ambition. The story tended to meander. Unimportant details and backstories barely moved the story forward. There were loose portions and uneven pacing that further bloated an otherwise brilliant novel.

Enríquez, however, did so well for the majority of the novel that its flaws become secondary to the book’s overall message. Indeed, Enríquez was relentless in laying out the foundation of the novel which won her the Herralde Prize, a prestigious Spanish literary prize previously won by esteemed writers such as Roberto Bolaño and Javier Marías. Our Share of Night, for its sheer ambition, is a towering accomplishment of literature. It is the conjunction of literal and metaphorical horrors set in a nation – Enríquez’s writing was vivid in capturing a sense of place and time – that was still reeling from the atrocities it recently witnessed. While its horrific elements were local, its overall messages resonate on a universal scale. Enríquez’s novel gave voice to those who were muted by the insatiable appetite for power and control. Beyond history and the occult, Our Share of Night was a moving story about the power of parental love.

“There was so much light that morning and the sky was so clear, its warm blue marred by a single white smirch, more like a plume of smoke than a cloud. It was already late and he needed to go and that hot day was going to be just like the niext: if it rained and he was hit with the river’s humidity and the stifling Buenos Aires heat, he would never be able to leave the city.”

~ Mariana Enríquez, Our Share of Night
Book Specs

Author: Mariana Enríquez
Translator (from Spanish): Megan McDowell
Publisher: Hogarth
Publishing Date: 2022 (2019)
Number of Pages: 588
Genre: Historical, Horror, Magical Realism, Literary

Synopsis

A woman’s mysterious death puts her husband and son on a collision course with her demonic family in the first novel to be translated into English by the International Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed – “the most exciting discovery I’ve made in fiction for some time” (Kazuo Ishiguro).

A young father and son set out on a road trip, devastated by the death of the wife and mother they both loved. United in grief, the pair travel to her ancestral home, where they must confront the terrifying legacy she has bequeathed: The woman they mourn came from a clan like no other – a centuries-old secret society called the Order that commits unspeakable acts in search of eternal life.

For Gaspar, the son, this maniacal cult is his destiny, and now he is in danger. As the Order tries to possess him. father and son take flight, yet nothing will stop the Order, for nothing is beyond them. But how far will Gaspar’s father go to protect his child? And can anyone escape their fate?

Moving back and forth in time, from London in the swinging 1960s to the brutal years of Argentina’s military dictatorship and its turbulent aftermath, Our Share of Night is a novel like no other: a family story, a ghost story, a story of the occult and the supernatural, a book about the complexities of love and longing with queer subplots and themes. This is the masterwork of one of Latin America’s most original novelists, “a mesmerizing writer,” says Dave Eggers, “who demands to be read.”

About the Author

Mariana Enríquez was born in 1973 in Buenos Aires but grew up in Valentín Alsina in suburban Buenos Aires. Parts of her family hail from North-Eastern Argentina (Corrientes and Misiones) and Paraguay. She graduated from Universidad Nacional de La Plata with a degree in Journalism and Social Communications. She works as a journalist and is the deputy editor of the arts and culture section of the newspaper Página/12 and the deputy editor of “the “Radar.” Enríquez also writes for other magazines, such as La mujer de mi vida and El guardián.

Enríquez made her literary debut in 1995 with the publication of Bajar es lo peor. She followed it up with Cómo desaparecer completamente (2004) and Éste es el mar (2017). Her latest novel, Nuestra parte de noche was published in 2019. It was warmly received by critics and readers alike, winning her the Herralde Prize, a literary prize won by esteemed writers such as Roberto Bolaño, Enrique Vila-Matas, and Javier Marías. Nuestra parte de noche was also Enríquez’s first novel to be translated into English, released in 2022 as Our Share of Night. Enríquez has also written novelettes and nonfiction works.

To the Anglophone readers, Enríquez, however, is more renowned for her short stories. Los peligros de fumar en la cama was published in 2009 and was translated into English in 2021 as The Dangers of Smoking in Bed. The collection was warmly received, earning Enríquez a shortlist at that year’s International Booker Prize. Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego (2016) was her first book to be translated into English in 2017 as Things We Lost in the Fire. Her short stories, which fall within the horror genre, have appeared in international magazines such as Granta, Electric Literature, Asymptote, McSweeney’s, Virginia Quarterly Review, and The New Yorker.

Enríquez is currently residing in Buenos Aires.