3.5 stars

I keep trying with Schweblin but something about her writing never quite lands for me in the way that Mariana Enríquez and Agustina Bazterrica, for example, do.

The six stories here are all in her trademark 'everyday uncanny' mode and I appreciate the way she finds the weird and uneasy in mundane life, especially in family relationships. There are no Gothic trappings, no obvious hauntings or identifiable monsters here.

The best stories for me are 'A Fabulous Animal' and 'An Eye in the Throat' both of which take family trauma and give it an emotive, visceral twist. But some of the other tales left me unmoved. There are some great ideas such as 'Welcome to the Club' which starts with a woman trying to drown herself, like Virginia Woolf, with stones in her pockets, but that beginning didn't quite come to fruition.

I like what these stories are doing in extending the boundaries of the weird as a literary category but I found the effect uneven. Still, the good stories are very good with a powerful elliptical quality that haunts.

Many thanks to Picador for an ARC via Netgalley.

This story collection is exactly what you would expect if you’re familiar with Schweblin’s work. Each of these stories, like the title implies have a fairytale like quality, teetering between realism and magical realism and questioning existence and interactions. Each story feels intentional and crafted intentionally to be set alongside each other. Whilst not every story personally I thought was perfect, the vast majority of this collection transports you into a strange world so similar to our own, exploring and dissecting the real, the supernatural, and the strange.

Argentine author Samanta Schweblin is part of a new wave of Latin American weird, speculative and horror fiction, alongside other authors (including several female and/or queer writers) such as Mariana Enríquez, Agustina Bazterrica, Mónica Ojeda, Giovanna Rivera and Bernardo Esquinca. However, while it is convenient to group authors into one geographical school, this often comes at the cost of losing sight of the idiosyncrasies of the individual authors.

In Schweblin’s case, what strikes me is her ability to create a sinister atmosphere of dread and unease, while barely relying – if at all – on traditional horror or Gothic tropes. Her previous collection to be published in English – Seven Empty Houses – did refashion, in its own way, the trope of the haunted or abandoned house. However, her latest – Good and Evil and Other Stories – avoids altogether traditional monsters, ghouls, and scary settings, and, instead, injects the uncanny into the everyday. In the opening tale, for instance, a young mother tries to kill herself by diving to the bottom of a lake, but then resurfaces to go back to her family, only to feel as if she left a part of herself in the deep waters. In another, a man regularly receives taunting silent prank calls at night, which may be somehow related to his son, with whom he has an awkward relationship blighted by a terrible accident. Elsewhere, two sisters befriend an alcoholic poet at a seaside resort, but their nightly escapades end in tragedy. All six tales in this collection inhabit ‘fever dream’ territory, punctuated with inexplicable happenings, peopled by unnerving characters who flit in and out of the narrative. Ordinary relationships and events are made strange. Family and friends become the backdrop for the horrific. Uncanny elements are often a metaphor for very real and human issues.

The collection is masterfully translated from the original Spanish by the prolific Megan McDowell, responsible for bringing into English earlier works by Schweblin and several other Latin American authors. She authentically conveys the haunted poetry of these magical tales.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2025/04/Good-and-Evil-Samanta-Schweblin.html

Fantastical, uncanny, weird. All good, to me. A small but beautifully formed collection of strange stories. It's difficult writing this type of story without wandering off into the genre of fantasy or leaning too hard against fairy tale or myths, but Schweblin pitches it right. More would have been good. My grateful thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

In Good and Evil and Other Stories, Samanta Schweblin once again proves herself a master of unsettling fiction. This forthcoming collection distills the eerie brilliance of her style into six taut, dreamlike tales that linger just beyond the edge of reason. Blending the surreal with the deeply human, Schweblin explores guilt, grief, and the fragile architecture of familial bonds. With her signature precision and quiet dread, each story pulses with emotional tension, revealing moments of everyday life cracked open by the uncanny. It’s a haunting, elegant addition to Schweblin’s already remarkable body of work.