Friday, September 29, 2017

#66: The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrera

In an epidemic-ravaged Mexico City, a peace broker called The Redeemer tries to negotiate a Romeo and Juliet-type situation between two crime families in Yuri Herrera's The Transmigration of Bodies.

Herrera's tight novel is a bit of a genre-buster, reading like a hard-boiled noir but--with characters called Neeyanderthal, Three Times Blonde, and The Unruly--also has elements of parable, with hallucinogenic imagery.

Our laconic hero spends half the novel trying to find an open pharmacy--his neighbor has finally given in to his advances, but he is out of condoms--and the other half dealing with deadly adversaries, all against a haunted, emptied landscape.

I read a lot of noir, and found Herrera's work fresh in a lot of ways.  Recommended for those who enjoy hard-boiled fiction and would like to try something new.

I bought this with an Amazon gift card for Father's Day and read it quickly.

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