As a gentleman more concerned with sufficiently starched top hats, photographs of cats, and the total dearth of responsibility for young humans and the constant bowel movements that accompany them than I am with propagating my lineage, one might presume the full impact of Samanta Schweblin’s “Fever Dream” (translated from Spanish to English by Megan McDowell) would be lost on me. This would be an erroneous presumption, as I, like all true gentlefolk, am not only capable of empathy, but indeed often overwhelmed by it. So, when the ceaseless dread generated by Schweblin’s powerful and brief jolt of a novel occasionally crescendos and a child is in peril (or a mother imagines her child to be in peril), my heart pounds and my worry kerchief is vigorously applied to my creased and dread-sweat blighted brow. I paused in the consumption of this terrifying story only to swap one sopping worry kerchief for the next temporarily dry portion of silk.
But I reluctantly suppose that is enough about my sweaty accessories, though assuredly I could wax on endlessly. Instead let us consider the novel I am recommending. If you are a parent, particularly of young children, and you do not enjoy a story likely to provoke parental anxiety, this is probably not the story for you. Similarly, I would not recommend reading this novel if you have trauma related to dead stallions or the foals with six-figure valuations that the once living stallion spawned. Do you feel like there are already enough dead ducks in your life? If not, definitely read “Fever Dream.”
Also read “Fever Dream” if you like weird little mysteries that aren’t as much about the mysteries as they are about the feelings of the characters whose lives have been upended and sometimes ended by something mysterious. If you like books that when their titles are typed into internet search engines the internet search engine suggests search queries that culminate in phrases like “ending explained” and “meaning,” then this is a book for you. If you’ve ever debated the merits of allowing a greenhouse dwelling medicine woman to split your child’s soul in twain so that the child’s body might escape the ravages of a deadly poison, this is apt to be a book you’ll devour. Ditto if your eyebrows and lashes were lost to the scourge of agricultural chemicals. (As eyebrows and lashes help divert sweat from dripping directly into the eyes, I recommend a reader facing this particular challenge retire to their reading parlor with an absolutely preposterous amount of silk or cotton for the purpose of preventing dread-sweat from stinging their defenseless eyes.)
