Argentinian writer Samanta Schweblin is perhaps best known for her novel Fever Dream, adapted for Netflix in 2021, but her short stories are equally celebrated. Her latest collection (published in Spanish in 2015 and meticulously translated by Megan McDowell) focuses on the domestic in disarray.
The most striking of the seven tales, Breath from the Depths, is also the longest. Lola is sick and her memory is failing: “she wanted to die, but every morning, inevitably, she woke up again”. Her ordered existence – facilitated by her longsuffering husband of 57 years – is disrupted when a single woman and her young son move in next door. They trigger memories of Lola’s dead son who “had not grown any taller than the kitchen cabinets”. She is suspicious of the pair and dislikes it when her husband befriends the boy.
