While we may not be able to empathise with the actions of many of these characters, the reasons behind their actions, or the ways that they feel about one another, how they handle their circumstances or react to what happens to them – there’s something here that we can all empathise with. And the honesty there can bring us some real guilt. While its characters are undeniably despicable, for reasons their own or sometimes not, they are never anything less than human.
That’s the pain that Hurricane Seasonbrings: unwanted honesty.
Read More: Review of An Orphan World (tr. We shift blame, colour ourselves in brighter or darker shades. Or is it simply that we cannot help but be biased when it comes to events surrounding ourselves. Each time they’re framed differently, and it becomes clear that this is a deceptive book.Įveryone is an unreliable narrator. Characters are shared, and we often get to know one character as our protagonist after seeing them in the periphery of an earlier chapter. And now she’s dead.Įach chapter of Hurricane Seasonis, in part, a self-contained story. The Witch, in other words, took on the burdens that the people could not – or would not – hold themselves responsible for. While the men would take refuge in her house to enjoy orgies that outside society would not approve of. The women of the village would seek her out for ‘potions’ and ‘spells’, often with regard to illness, pregnancy, or other issues. These people all reside in the Mexican village of La Matosa, and the woman they simply refer to as The Witch was someone many of them would come to from time to time. Read More: The Best Modern Mexican Novels To find out whodunnit, we have to trace the lives of the various people who, in one way or another, knew The Witch. Framed initially as a whodunnit of sorts, the book’s first and shortest chapter – at just a single page – takes us by the hand to a dead body. In fact, this is one of Melchor’s great achievements: turning the book into a spiteful character in its own right. Not only are the characters of Hurricane Seasondeceptive and mischievous, but so is the book itself.
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