I couldn’t put this book down. Everything about this novel drew me in. A young woman dying in a hospital bed, and a boy who is not her son who is sitting beside her. This is a haunting story of those who are broken, and the power and desperation of broken families. This was a really short book, but one that takes you on a rollercoaster of emotions. I loved it!

This novella was incredible, but it upset me so much that I immediately gave away my hard copy. Great writing, immersive and disturbing - well worth reading but not for the faint of heart.

A young mother lies in a fever on her deathbed, desperate to understand what has happened to her.  Abandon any sense of what books about death are like, `Fever Dream` is not what you may expect, and Schweblin is far from Faulkner.

I found this to be a really refreshing, thought-provoking quick read.  Told as a stream-of-consciousness narrative during a fever-induced dream, this is both surreal and yet equally poignant in equal measures.  On one hand, there is a strong sense of maternal love and concern from the narrator, who constantly worries about keeping her daughter safe; then there is David's mother, who has her own reasons for keeping her distance from him.

Touching without being overly-sentimental, fantastical without being unrealistic, I look forward to reading more from this author.

The Man Booker Prize is widely considered to be the highest acclaim that a literary work can have lavished upon it but like many things in the publishing world it skews more than a little in favour of writers who use English. To remedy this situation, and to introduce the literati of the western world to some new voices and insights, the Man Booker International Prize was introduced to showcase translated works from all over the world.

If you have read through any of my other reviews, you may have noticed a little disdain towards authors of “literature” rather than books, and I just want to clarify by saying that I have profoundly enjoyed many works of literature and I can appreciate them for what they are despite the distinct lack of dragons, lasers and explosions. What I take issue with is when a literary author descends from the heavens to grace us lowly genre fiction mortals with their presence. Deigning to write a book of genre fiction, without ever having read any of the genre, and expecting to receive all their usual acclaim. Many authors in genre fiction use “literary” techniques to great effect, but they also understand how their genres work. Most of the dabblers do not.

Which finally brings us to my personal pick for the Man Booker International Prize; Fever Dream. A book which blends literary writing and magical realism with a solid backbone of horror. Of all the genres that benefit the most from literary techniques, horror is the one where I see them implemented the least frequently, which is a genuine shame, because the soft edges that literature puts on reality works amazingly well with stories of the supernatural, or stories with subjects too dark to address directly. 

The famous ghost story author M R James had a memorable quote about horror which I am about to butcher for simplicity’s sake. He said that he could always tell the difference between an invented ghost story and a real one because the invented one always had to have a point while the real one, recounted by friends of friends, had no meaning deeper than the experience itself. Many masters of the horror genre have pursued that lack of understanding in their work, that sense that the universe is beyond comprehension, with the most obvious example being H P Lovecraft.

Samanta Schweblin pursues exactly the same goal with Fever Dream but mixes that existential dread and lack of understanding with far more human fears. Death and the crippling anxieties of parenthood.

From the very first moments of the book we know that her narrator Amanda is dying. That she is recounting moments from her final days in a constant impressionistic stream of cognition in a last desperate attempt to fend off her confrontation with the terrible truth at the end of her story. 



The way that the story is told is at least as important as the story itself. Every one of the characters is recounting their own story within the story in a Russian doll of narratives, creating a shell around the terrible truth and creating a situation in which there is a sense of partial possession. No one character gets to be only themselves, which ties perfectly into the one supernatural element of the story, the local wise woman who is doing her best to save those poisoned by the environmental threats of the area where the story takes place.

You get the distinct sense that Amanda’s story is only a piece of something larger, not only because of the fragmented nature of the plot, but also because there is not even the slightest hint of a resolution. The story continues without Amanda and without our observation, the fragments of the story keep on spreading out and touching lives beyond our limited perspective. Life goes on after we, both narrator and reader die, which is a whole other thread of existential horror that Schweblin weaves through this perfectly constructed story with ease.

“Strange can be quite normal. Strange can just be the phrase ‘That is not important’ as an answer for everything. But if your son never answered you that way before, then the fourth time you ask him why he’s not eating, or if he’s cold, or you send him to bed, and he answers, almost biting off the words as if he were still learning to talk, ‘That is not important’, I swear to you Amanda, your legs start to tremble.”

I received an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

Fever Dream is yet another 2017 Man Booker International Prize nominee that I only just got around to reading. And, shamefully, I only picked it up because I needed a quick read before I borrowed a book off a friend.

And, despite my hesitation to start it, I am so glad I picked this little gem up.

This book is magnificently unsettling. Translated from Argentinian, the prose is sparse, but tense AF. The story unfolds through a conversation between a mother and a boy in the hospital. Nothing is ever completely explained and events move in unpredictable ways, from the mundane to the terrific and back again. It’s as if we are in the nightmare with our protagonist, facing each of her fears with her.

There is a suffocating sense of dread throughout the book that never lets up. Instead, you must yield to its unhinged nature and pray you make it out at the other side.

Fever Dream won’t always make sense, and you’ll probably still be confused at the end. But it’s weirdly fascinating and absolutely worth it.

An unsettling story that questions the innocence of children, motherhood, the role of science and magic, and how we are poisoning ourselves and our planet. Highly recommended.

This is not my usual genre but it looked interesting and has been nominated for the Man Booker so I thought I’d give it a go. I’m really glad I did. It’s well written and has an intricate, twisty plot that I really enjoyed.

A woman named Amanda lies in a fever in a rural hospital clinic,  A young boy, David sits beside her. She’s not his mother. He’s not her child.

David is prompting Amanda to recount the events that led to her illness, constantly pushing her to fix on the ‘important moment’, the moment when the ‘worms’ got in. Yet for Amanda what is important is where her young daughter Nina is. She talks a lot about the ‘rescue distance’, something most parents are constantly measuring and recalibrating as their children grow. How far away from you are they? Are they close enough to rescue should danger befall them?

As David continues to push her, the horror of the thing that has befallen them is exposed, is there any way back through it? Can Amanda get back to being within rescue distance of Nina?

Samanta Schweblin is a fairly new voice on the Spanish literary scene, her short stories have won critical acclaim but this is her first novel. It was rightfully shortlisted for the Man Booker international prize as it is incredibly evocative. Reading it you feel like you are in a fever dream, nothing is quite where it should be and memories are more vivid than the world around you. This lends itself perfectly to the strange, creeping, psychological menace.

I can’t tell you more of the plot without ruining it for you, but I would definitely recommend you read it if you like books that are a bit weird and that don’t necessarily tie up every loose end for you. This is like that, it’s a melody in a minor key that will keep surfacing in your mind like a memory of illness and loss. It is a tale of maternal love and the power and desperation of family.

Some praise must also go to the translator Megan McDowell.

Five Bites

NB I received a free copy of this book through NetGalley in return for an honest review. The BookEaters always write honest reviews.

There is a trapped, uncomprehending and out-of-control feeling throughout the book. It certainly is reminiscent of a fever dream but that's certainly not a sensation I enjoyed revisiting. 

There are some beautiful images but some of the phrases felt a little clumsy (reading in English). I read through to the end thinking I would reach some understanding of the elements of body transfer, pollution and protection centred on this small town. But this is not a piece of science fiction and so I failed to slot the puzzle pieces together into a coherent whole as I had hoped.

A nightmarish journey through a strange landscape of dreams memories and delirium.

like the title, you will feel like you are experiencing a fevered dream because the writing is so lyrical and haunting.  translated from spanish (the author is from Buenos Aires), you will think about this book and its themes long after you've finished it.

Confusing and surreal, with a tinge of superstition, almost verging on paranormal, Schweblin increases the tension with each paragraph. With no chapters and no breaks, you won't leave the pages, left in constant worry that you can't see what's wrong either, that you've missed the crucial detail too, the 'most important thing'.

I highly recommend you read it. It's worrying, thought provoking, an eye opener into how aware we actually are. How much can we save our loved ones from when we can't see the problem?

I think this may be the closest thing to horror that I’ve ever read; I had to create a shelf especially for it. From the time I first heard about it I was intrigued by the premise of this Man Booker International Prize-shortlisted novella. Amanda lies terminally ill in an emergency clinic and with what time she has left engages in a conversation with David about the peculiar events that took place on a recent trip she and David’s mother Carla took with their children. Several of the characters seem to have mysterious and potentially life-threatening symptoms, yet the focus is on recounting the story and figuring out where the crisis began. Phrases like “the worms,” “the rescue distance” and “transmigration” keep getting repeated but are never explained; if you’re hoping for all to eventually become clear, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. Schweblin builds a nicely creepy atmosphere, and you do feel that time is running out, but ultimately you are just lost in the nightmare. A very quick read, but not a satisfying one I could recommend.

A very poor book. Some say it is better when read in one sitting and I question if something was lost in translation. Advertised as a psychological thriller this is nothing but sleep-inducing.

Fever Dream is the record of the last few memories and thoughts of Amanda as she lies dying. She is extremely worried about her daughter, Nina. Where is she? Is she safe?

The narrative is delivered as a conversation between Amanda and a young boy, David. David is the son of Carla, the elegant woman in gold sandals who lives not far from the holiday home Amanda and Nina are renting. Right from the first day of their stay Carla has stepped one gleaming foot at a time into Amanda and Nina’s life, her son David an ominous presence hovering in the background.

What does Carla want? What happened to her and her son?

Though the novel traces the events of Amanda and Nina’s time at the holiday house, our certainty about Amanda’s lucidity remains in question and this is what makes Fever Dream so fascinating: our understanding of reality is stretched but all within the possible safety-net of Amanda’s fevered delusion.

Fever Dream is a horror story, but it is also an elegantly woven and acutely observed story with true psychological insight. The emotional bonds that exist between parents and their children, between people in general, are explored and articulated beautifully. Very early on Amanda talks about the moments of mutual fascination and repulsion experienced by her and Carla, moments that are definable and clearly experienced but unspoken and hard to describe in tangible terms. These kinds of ties, these feelings that exist in our lives and yet have no discernable, objective reality, are exactly the kinds of human experience that Fever Dream uses to exploit our sense of impending harm.

I’ve been saying novel, but Fever Dream is more of a novella: shorter, singular in style and purpose, somehow more direct in its assault on the reader. It’s a really wonderful, if frightening, tale. I thoroughly recommend it for anyone who wants to try a fresh outlook on those undefinable senses that reach beyond the usual five and test our certainty in commonly accepted objective reality.

The title of this book is very apt - this book is like a feverish dream one that is bizaare and just doesn't make sense where anything can happen. I was instantly pulled in by the synopsis and the fact that this book has been short listed for the Man Booker Prize 2017. I wanted to see what level of writing and concepts it took to be nominated for the Man Booker.

This book was a little confusing for me, eerie and peculiar is what I felt but after finishing I sat back questioning what I had read and was not sure how to rate it. This is definitely a weird and crazy book and would be best to read in one sitting which could be done as it is only 192 pages. I think if you read this in one go uninterrupted you would feel the unease and crazyness of this short story.

Hmmm, how to review Fever Dream? I don't think I've ever read anything like it before. It has the most incredible sense of unease running through its twisting narrative. I had no idea what was going on for most of the novel and I'm still not entirely sure I do. But it's not a story I will forget in a hurry.

Amanda, a holidaymaker in rural Argentina, lies in a hospital bed. David, the creepy son of a local woman named Carla, sits nearby and presses Amanda to recount the events that have led her here. She can't see or move. David says it's because of the worms and that "we have to find the exact moment when the worms come into being . . . It’s very important, it’s very important for us all." Amanda tells him about the recent conversations she has had with his mother, which reveal a distressing tale. She knows she is about to die in this dark hospital room. But what are these worms David keeps talking about? What is the "important thing" he constantly refers to? And what on earth has become of her young daughter Nina?

Amanda talks about "the rescue distance" throughout the story, a continuous mental calculation she makes of how long it would take to rescue Nina in an emergency. Maternal anxiety is one of the main themes of Fever Dream. Carla initially felt the same concern for David's well-being but ever since the terrifying incident that occurred, she feels like she has lost him. He seems like a different person, she says. Amanda is eternally conscious of Nina's safety but it only takes one horrifying, seemingly innocuous moment for her world to unravel. 

I've since discovered that Schweblin is a big fan of David Lynch and especially of Twin Peaks. His influence is strong in this novel, especially in the shifting border between dreams and reality. She says that the "intense feeling that something strange can happen" is something she wants to transfer to her readers. Well she certainly succeeds on that level. I can't remember the last time I've read a novel so unsettling. There are hints at an ecological root to the horror that unfolds, but most of this disturbing tale left to our own interpretation. Fever Dream is a unique and daring debut - its haunting, innovative storytelling marks Samanta Schweblin out as a writer of enormous talent.

Full of erie suspense; the mystery surrounding David and the future of Amanda really has you guessing right up until the very last page.

I can't really do anything except give this book the highest rating because it was a trip. A Fever Dream indeed. Beautiful writing and a story that I feel you will either adore or go "What the all heck was that?" Actually you may have the what the all heck moment adoringly or otherwise.

A woman lies in a bed. A boy listens to her story, sometimes encouraging sometimes dismissing that which she is telling him as unimportant. He wants her to see "the moment" she wants to come to some understanding of what is happening. Samanta Schweblin weaves an aura around the reader that is so immersive a lot of the time you feel like you may just be dreaming you are reading a book. It is insane and yet highly beautifully compelling, both in descriptive sense and in substance. 

There is a central theme which I won't tell you, but you never really feel that this theme is its purpose. You are pulled into the narrative and just kind of hover there, waiting to see where it goes, what this boy actually wants, who they are, what their connection is, both to each other and to the wider world. It is often tense, distinctly creepy on occasion, thought provoking and ultimately haunting.

A difficult one to review with any real practicality - to be honest you just have to try it for yourselves I can't think of one way to offer reasons why you would love it or not love it. Although if you must have everything tied up in a neat bow at the end of every book you read this one will almost certainly not be for you.

Anyone who has read the positively brilliant (yet divisive) "I'm Thinking Of Ending Things" by Iain Reid could maybe imagine what Fever Dream is like although they are two very very different books. But both left me with the same sense of melancholy and the same feeling that my mind was going to worry at various angles of the story at all times of the day and night. That ended up being true of Iain Reid's novel I guess I'm about to find out if that is the case with Fever Dream.

In the end though, Fever Dream is a story of the type I love to find - stretching my reading comfort zone, making me consider the words on the page, assess the whole thing again based on where things are left and in the coming to those moments experiencing a truly talented writer at work.

Yes I'm going to say highly recommended. I don't think really I can do anything else. 

**Review also posted to Amazon and Goodreads**

Fantastic read! Full review at lizzysiddal. Wordpress com.