Night Shyamalan, although Dávila leans more toward it’s-all-in-your-head scary than supernatural scary. More than a few blindside you with a plot twist worthy of M. Her stories begin soberly enough-an old guy cleaning out an apartment (“Moses and Gaspar”), a shy girl sitting at the family table (“The Breakfast”)-but long-buried doubts and unspoken fears soon bubble to the surface. The world Dávila imagines weighs on the brain like some sort of delirium. So hats off to New Directions for getting behind Mexico’s high priestess of horror. Who’s to say if Garza’s book gave the publishing world the nudge it needed, but now we have a long-overdue translation of Dávila. Virtually unheard of stateside, Dávila has earned a lasting place in Mexican literature.
At his doorstep a doctor finds his former lover and a mysterious woman who claims to be the real-life author Amparo Dávila. Like many Gothic novels, this one opens on a dark and stormy night. Last year saw the English translation of Cristina Rivera Garza’s The Iliac Crest.
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