by Corrine Watson
June 20, 2023
Corrine Watson is a freelance writer and editor based in Charlotte, NC and is Reviews Editor for West Trade Review. Her work has appeared in Wretched Creations, the Southern Review of Books and F(r)iction. Follow her on Twitter @CorrineWatson6.
Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Agustina Bazterrica, Translator Sarah Moses; Scribner; 176 pages; $16.19
Following her novel Tender is the Flesh, Augustina Bazterrica returns with a gripping collection of short stories, Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird. These unsettling stories explore surreal horrors and the darkness of the human psyche. Through vivid imagery and wordplay, Bazterrica brilliantly captures the sinister tone of the horror genre. While the stories in the collection often feature violence towards women and children and characters in the midst of a mental health crisis, the author doesn’t glorify the explicit details of these tragedies, but rather presents the reader with a distinct sense of empathy for characters in their darkest moments..
Bazterrica’s stories often explore the threat of violence men impose on women. Between stalkers, rapists, and murderers, the author calls attention to the ways women can walk through their day-to-day lives wary of their potential to become a victim. In “The Solitary Ones,” a woman on her commute home thinks about her vulnerable position and is “enraged at being a cliché: the young woman alone and afraid as she walks along a deserted street." The characters' potential for harm is a common trope in the collection and creates a sense of anxiety in the reader as they prepare for the worst, but rather than illustrating gratuitous violence, the author handles the victim’s experience with compassion and perhaps offers a sense of justice, as Bazterrica does not let men off easy. This is illustrated in “Mary Carminum,” where the narrator and his friend discuss their running “game” to keep score of sexual conquests. When the narrator says, “you cheated, you used the old pill to knock her out,” the reader can intuit that romance is likely not on the table for their dates. Yet in a strange turn of events, he finds himself attacked, drugged, and confused with no hope for escape in the middle of a ritualistic worship event. This creates a sense of poetic justice that works well in the collection as it’s not hard to imagine how many women he’s left in a similar state.
Several stories in the collection feature children, where the real horror and tension is often in the reader’s knowledge in contrast with the character’s naivety and innocence. “Roberto” turns a girl’s coming-of-age into a casually speculative story where a girl finds a little black bunny growing between her legs. The tension arises from the inappropriate attention from her teacher, yet Bazterrica end’s this punchy flash fiction at the peak of its climax with candid nonchalance, leaving the reader to stew in the anxiety of the experience. Similarly, “Earth” also depicts the sexual abuse of a child at the hands of her father, but this is in the background of the narrative as Bazterrica draws on the reader’s sympathy for Camila by illustrating the ramifications this abuse has in destroying her relationship with her mother. When Camila thinks about the changes in her mother’s affections towards her, she notes that, “She stopped looking at me. That was at first, when Papá just wanted me close. Later, after what happened, she stopped talking to me.” Although the oppressive nature of the patriarchy, or the violence imposed on women, is a running theme throughout the collection, the stories featuring children stand out in the way Bazterrica portrays these loss of innocence stories with compassion for the characters' situation, while drawing attention to the multifaceted layers of harm caused by trauma, which is captured by the way Camila’s mother responds to her daughter’s abuse with complacency and callousness, presenting a further betrayal and a horror in itself as the author illustrates the darker psychology that manifests in victims of abuse. There is a sense of sorrow that flows through these stories as these young girls experience trauma and rejection, and as their stories end, it is clear that they have no safe place to turn, which creates a haunting resonance.
Throughout the collection, the reader meets characters in the midst of crisis and follows their descent into madness and ultimate demise. While this is perhaps a played-out trope of the horror genre, Bazterrica is still able to present the reader with unique nightmares that resonate with an uncanny sense of care and heartache. Perhaps the most gory story in the collection, “The Continuous Equality of Circumference,” illustrates the disturbing psychology of Ada, who is obsessed with the idea of becoming a circle. In this gruesomely surreal narrative, Bazterrica aptly captures the psychology of diet culture and body dysmorphia in the midst of Ada’s diet of circular foods and self-mutilation. In spite of the chilling, grotesque nature of these stories, the author is able to maintain an air of sadness and empathy as the reader is presented with the inevitable end awaiting the characters, which gives the reader a haunting satisfaction.
In a similar vein, “Candy Pink” follows a step-by-step guide of a second-person narrator dealing with the aftermath of a break-up. The use of the second-person perspective in this story is expertly navigated as the author is able to utilize the removed perspective to illustrate the narrator’s own dissociation as she presents as an entity existing outside of herself going through the overwhelming emotions of rage, grief, and emptiness. After she explores the destructive nature of grief, she takes a moment to, “Examine the collateral damage caused by the intensification of your crazed emotions. Consider that you have only attained part of your objective.” This presents a shift in the tone of the story as the narrator considers self-harm in various ways that she finds lacking. As she notes the disappointing distance between her apartment window and the ground, it becomes clear to the reader that she doesn’t want to live in the aftermath of this break up. The narrator explains, “Feel that you’re in the midst of chaos, in the midst of emotional, material, and concrete destruction. Look at the letter and exclaim: 'I’m too young to die.' Accept the fact that this is an empty statement. Pick up the firearm.” Bazterrica eloquently captures the darkness of the narrator’s mindset, just as she does with Ada in “The Continuous Equality of Circumference,” and perhaps uses these situations to illustrate the darker psychologies related to body image and the trauma associated with a bad breakup. These stories stood out, not only in the heartbreaking finality to the character’s actions, but in the acceptance the characters find at the end of their struggle, which results in a sense of empathy in the reader who is left with the knowledge that these characters don’t live on past the last sentence.
The tales in Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird are not for the faint of heart as they draw out some of the most engaging aspects of horror for readers who want to be delightfully disturbed by the uncanny nightmares lurking within Bazterrica’s writing. Each story ends with a satisfying finality as if the characters have found a sense of acceptance in their personal horrors. This isn’t a collection of jump scares and plot twists because Bazterrica presents this acceptance almost as an inevitably. Yet even when the outcomes are expected or predictable, they are no less terrifying.
©2023 West Trade Review
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
An Inevitable Demise: Exploring Surreal Psychological Horror In Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Augustina Bazterrica
FICTION REVIEW
Stay Connected to Our Literary Community. Subscribe to Our Newsletter
Image by Sam Pineda from Pexels
