The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda (Mexico), translated from Spanish by Julia Sanches & Heather Cleary (Scribe). 192pp

Adding my comment on this from the general longlist thread.
More energy on first impression than several of the listed novellas (going by samples and extracts).

It's very Virgine Despentes, but that influence creates an interesting implied juxtaposition between countries and living conditions, and it's a style that seems really suited to the energy of the place.

I think this is this first big culture longlist to be announced since there was a substantial impression of how the world (and Anglo culture) might be changed by the new regime in the US. If works that kick against some of those ideas are being chosen in the first place, the kind of punk energy displayed here - and from a country where life has always been harder for a greater % of people - seems more inventive and interesting a choice than reportage fiction that more or less transposes traditional broadsheet content into another form.
(I don't know WTF I am doing still posting this on GR, a US-based website never mind anything else about it, but I have had a lot else to sort out without yet fully working out where else to have conversations about this stuff without feeling every thought corralled by character count.)

This did not really work for me - the core linked stories (of which there are four) were too Tarantino like for me and the a number of the others distinctly not to my tastes.

I did really like the last story though and was thinking how it and other elements of the collection reminded me of Selva Almada’s Dead Girls when to my surprise the narrator’s psychologist suggests the book to her and gives her some advice which is actually the opening quote from my review of that book.

My review where I attempt to group the stories

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I enjoyed the collection as a whole, but agree that the last is the strongest. It felt like the culmination of all that came before and packed the biggest emotional punch.

The soundtrack for this (unofficial one I found on Spotify) isn’t quite the sort of music I expected from the stories

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3nF...

I looked up most of the artists as I read (pictures, the beginnings of Wiki entries, I didn't listen to the tunes). There were quite a lot of older classic pop singers, and bands who wear sombreros and specialise in various kinds of semi-traditional Mexican music. (I don't know what the umbrella term would be for their subgenres, if there is one).

I think quite often, characters are referencing classics they grew up hearing. It feels a lot more like a world where radio was important into the recent past, and not as dominated by young people's curated preferences for newer artists, as a book about a similar demographic from the UK or US might be.

Thank you for posting the link!

I wrote in my review that had I have enjoyed it more I would have looked up playlists so now I might try them if it’s spot listed. I travel to Mexico on work every year or two to visit my teams there - so interested in the music culture there.

“Spot listed”. Is that a book which gets commended for its playlist?

Yes.

Antonomasia wrote: "I think quite often, characters are referencing classics they grew up hearing. It feels a lot more like a world where radio was important into the recent past, and not as dominated by young people's curated preferences for newer artists, as a book about a similar demographic from the UK or US might be."

Well put - and actually in the last story (which I had not read when I posted) the two goth girls admit to these being sort of guilty pleasures and not songs that fit their aesthetic.

I guess I was more surprised by some of those in the quartet of stories who are a) very young and b) identify with international culture and fashion that they wouldn't listen more to newer artists, even if they forced themselves to do so - their bodies are plastic so would their culture be as well?

I ended up rather liking this more than I expected - the last story I think really wraps it up and justifies a lot of what is featured earlier. Which is interesting given originally just the first 9 stories were published.

I've added a miniplay list of favourite songs to the end of my review - although GR seems to be in one of it's modes where it isn't allowing links.

It is interesting how initially I found this bundle rather one note, over the top even in the constant depiction of either narcotic related violence or general violence towards women. It even made me think a bit of Emilia Perez, even though I know the writer is from Mexico and should be much less prone to a Netflixed view of the country, but then the last story with the statistic of at least 10 women being murdered everyday really hit the reality home of what Dahlia de la Cerda describes.

The at times lighthearted tone of the bundle in a sense impressively counters, and forms an interesting contrast to the completely different way We Do Not Part by Han Kang examines mass murder, the subject matter.
Also the recent unearthing of literal death camps with crematoria in Mexico (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c...) makes for chilling reading and Reservoir Bitches an especially timely read.

Full review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I thought this collection was brilliant. It's the best from the longlist that I've read so far. In addition to Dead Girls it made me think of The Simple Art of Killing a Woman, Liliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister's Search for Justice and The Night Alphabet.