The Dangers of Smoking in Bed

Stories

by Mariana Enriquez, Megan McDowell

hardcover, 208 pages

Published Jan. 12, 2021 by Hogarth.

ISBN:: 978-0-593-13407-8

(14 reviews)

Following the "propulsive and mesmerizing" ( New York Times Book Review ) Things We Lost in the Fire comes a new collection of singularly unsettling stories, by an Argentine author who has earned comparisons to Shirley Jackson and Jorge Luis Borges.

Mariana Enriquez has been critically lauded for her unconventional and sociopolitical stories of the macabre: populated by unruly teenagers, crooked witches, homeless ghosts, and hungry women, they walk the uneasy line between urban realism and horror. The stories in her next collection are as terrifying as they are socially conscious, and press into being the unspoken -- fetish, illness, the female body, the darkness of human history -- with unsettling urgency. A woman is sexually obsessed with the human heart; a lost, rotting baby crawls out of a backyard and into a bedroom; a pair of teenage girls can't let go of their idol; an entire neighborhood is cursed …

Written against the backdrop of contemporary Argentina, and with resounding tenderness towards those in pain, in fear, and in limbo, this new collection from one of Argentina's most exciting writers finds Enriquez at her most sophisticated, and most chilling.

1 edition

mikerickson reviewed The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez

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3 stars

You know I can respect when an author just throws all caution to the wind and doesn't concern themselves with pulling any punches. There is some weird shit that goes down in this short story collection that someone else might've massaged down or merely implied offscreen, but you're getting the full, horrible, unambiguous description of whatever horror is befalling a character, whether you like it or not.

Per my usual approach, I'm gonna rate this collection as a cumulative whole rather than break out each of the twelve stories given here. I generally found there to be a consistent level of quality among them, though I had favorites of course. And the uniquely Argentine and feminine spin on each story (each protagonist was a woman/teen girl) will definitely make this stand out in my memory going forward compared to other anthologies I've read. Anyway, these were my favorites:

"Back When …

"Back When We Talked to the Dead" - Five teenage girls mess around with a Ouija board. Simple premise that actually got a spook out of me.

"Where Are You, Dear Heart?" - A woman discovers she has a fetish for listening to atypical heartbeats and goes waaay down the deep end of a niche community.

"The Well" - One of the most terrifying and depressing depictions of severe paranoia I've ever read.

janson reviewed The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez

Review of 'The Dangers of Smoking in Bed' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

Fantastique in small bits just doesn’t stick in the same way… it needs time to root around in the cellar, grimed with soot, thick dust, and cobwebs before turning sharp black.

Erin reviewed The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez

Review of 'The Dangers of Smoking in Bed' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This is a 3.5 rounded up. Short stories aren’t really my thing, though I keep reading them. I have read some collections that really work for me, they’re just rare.

As bizarre as it is, I think “Where Are You, Dear Heart?” is probably my favorite. It was such a well executed experience.

I think another favorite is The Well. I could see where it was going but it almost increased the horror for me.

The writing is great, but sometimes the stories felt like they took a while to get going or there wasn’t enough there, which is what I often feel about short stories.