A Quick Flyby
Not a ton to report this week. 13 and I did a second viewing of K-POP DEMON HUNTERS with 15 (his first) and started the donghua of GRANDMASTER OF DEMONIC CULTIVATION. You’re going to need Crunchyroll for the later because it has vanished from Viki, due, I imagine, to the danmei/BL crackdown in China (@damn.writesstuff on Threads and IG for reliable updates). More viewing has meant less time for reading but also more time with the kiddo and as we have two teenagers, I don’t turn that down. Because reading is fundamental, however, I did, of course, make some time and this is what I got into:
The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas (Berkley, 8/19)
First thing first: I know we don’t judge books by their covers but I love this cover; it’s a little bit old school pulp and I’m here for the retro red-dress-heaving-bosom of it all especially considering where Alba’s story ends up which, of course, you don’t know until after you’ve read it, but that’s the maraschino cherry on top of this horror sundae. Honestly though, it’s a fantastic cover in and of itself and I would definitely grab it off a shelf for the combination of the art and title alone.
Second thing second: I did not expect the Mexican Inquisition. Perhaps I should have because, well, Spain and colonizers, but I didn’t which tells me that I need to read up on Mexican history. Because I have a Masters in Theological Studies with a specialization in Christianity and Culture that supposedly covers everything between the way back and the Civil Rights movement and guess what we never talked about? If you guessed the Inquisition outside of Europe, gold star. Yes, The Possession of Alba Díaz is supernatural fiction but, hey, surprise, you can learn stuff from fiction. Any and all kinds of fiction. Including what you don’t know.
Now for the most important part: why Alba Díaz instead of any of the other eleventy-billion other possessed girl books out there? A fair question. Because there are eleventy-billion and a lot of the are good to great. If you read Cañas’s The Hacienda, you know at least some of the reasons: Cañas is really good at the creeping horror, that sense of there being something there but not quite, something whispering in your ear and staring at your back that, when you turn around, has melted into the wallpaper or the water or withdrawn back under the bed. She’s also extremely deft at crafting stories where the supernatural is a matter of course but during which the expected means of cure only make matters worse which is a nice little slap to doctrine and expands the plot’s possibilities to include not only the triumph of evil but some kind of alliance between the main character and her demon - whether willing or unwilling. And, despite the terror, blood, and agonized meditation on sin, things aren’t all doom and gloom; Cañas’s leading ladies are funny, always managing to see the absurdity in their situations and rolling their eyes at the ghosts, spirits, and old gods who just won’t leave them alone.
The Possession of Alba Díaz has a lot of competition in the horror category this summer and I’d place it at the front of the pack. It takes a minute to get into but, once you do, you’ll be glad you stuck around and when the payoff hits… well, I’ve never kicked my feet and squealed for a splatterfest before but I did for this one (insert Cell Block Tango gif).
The Possession of Alba Díaz: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780593641071
The Hacienda: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780593436707
The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino, trans. Alexander O. Smith (Minotaur Books)
First of all, I need to congratulate this translator because his use of the word “futzing” in this book indicates that a Yiddish word has become enough a part of the English vernacular that it can be used as a suitable translation for a Japanese word in the context of a sentence and that blows my mind. I love language, it’s so awesome and weird. I would also love to know what the original, Japanese word is and what the literal translation is just because I’m curious.
I read a lot of books that have mystery as an element of the plot but I don’t read a ton of straight-up mysteries; without a weird quirk or a second plot running in the foreground, procedurals don’t tend to hold my attention. The description of The Devotion of Suspect X hooked me because it promised a Sherlockian sort of character nicknamed Detective Galileo, a physicist who helps a former classmate at the police department solve cases that seem to have come to dead ends. You’ll like him a lot more than Sherlock, though; he has a backstory. He has friends. He cares about people, including the titular Suspect X, to the point it trips him up and stalls the investigation more than once. He’s big brained but also big hearted, strange but perceptive, snarky but kind. He has zero respect for authority but doesn’t look down on anyone even in a hierarchical society. But while Galileo drew me in, he isn’t the most interesting thing about the book.
The most interesting thing about the book is that the murder happens right in front of you in the first chapter and you spend the rest of the novel trying to figure out why even the physics genius can’t lay the facts out as neatly as you can.
And then it turns out you missed something. Something that was right in front of your face the entire time. Something that different people mentioned multiple times and you didn’t notice but Detective Galileo does.
How? I have no idea but I stayed up until 1am trying to figure it out even though I had to get up at 6 the next day.
I don’t want to say anything more because, as with many mysteries, I want you to go in as unspoiled as I was. I wouldn’t poke around the web too much either, it’s an older book and there are bound to be spoilers. The good news is, if you enjoy The Devotion of Suspect X, there are other Detective Galileo novels and Higashino is pretty prolific beyond those as well. Enjoy!
The Devotion of Suspect X: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9781250002693
The Second Chance Convenience Store by Kim Ho-Yeon, trans. Janet Hong (Harper Perennial)
Is it possible for a book to be one of the saddest things you’ve ever read and also the most hopeful?
The Second Chance Convenience Store is about all of the terrible things people can do to one another and to themselves. All the ways we can drag one another down, alienate ourselves from those we love, hate ourselves so much that we goad them into leaving us so that we can blame them even though we know the fault lies with us. It’s about the small cruelties we visit on one another, the ones that build up over time into insurmountable walls. The lies that become alternate realities.
But it’s also about second chances. The ones we let go by but also the ones we take. The ones we’re afraid to reach for but grasp anyway, the ones we’re didn’t think were possible but which appear as though by magic. The ones we work hard for, the ones we wear earn. The ones we risk everything for.
This is a beautiful little book and I think it’s important, especially right now. So many of our worlds are falling apart and there is nothing that can make that collapse better but maybe, just maybe, if we can hold on, we’ll have another chance. And those second chances can be worth waiting for.
Those second chances can be magical.
The Second Chance Convenience Store: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780063354777
Current reads: Nine Tails by Jayci Lee and I Want to be a Wall by Hinami Shirono