#24 Heads will roll
Mariana Enriquez, Ahou Daryaei, and reading recommendations
Hi friends,
Not quite knowing how this Substack will find you, I do hope you have been able to find small pockets of joy and/or perform acts of resistance alongside your community this past week.
At our last book club session, we discussed The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, a collection of short stories by the Argentinian author Mariana Enriquez.
“When I make horror, I try to make it Latin American.” And indeed, the writer is true to her word, interweaving urban legends with indigenous spirits, infused with daily acts of violence in real-life neighbourhoods. But the biggest shadow that looms is the military dictatorship of Argentina, which lasted from 1976 to 1983.
The story Back When We Talked to the Dead refers to the “disappearing” of individuals suspected by the government of opposing the regime. Kids Who Come Back brings to light the cruel practice of stealing babies from political prisoners. Women were kept alive to give birth, after which their babies were illegally adopted by military families or other couples in political agreement with the regime.
Violence seeps from the pages of this book. Male violence, for sure, be it an abusive father, a rapist, or a cameraman with zero boundaries. But we also see chilling flashes of girls and young women—whether of this world of the spirit world—committing violent acts towards each other, in Our Lady of the Quarry, The Well and The Lookout.
I have briefly written about the Ni Una Menos movement in Argentina here, as well as the current President, whose policies are actively endangering the lives of women in Argentina.
Discover Mariana Enriquez’ full body of work here. Friend of the book club, Juliana, also put me onto her biography of Silvina Ocampo—only available in French for the moment, désolée—an Argentinian writer, poet, and translator whose literary works have gained attention from a new, international audience in recent years.
“Girls can be like bees or like locusts: there’s something toxic and delicious and exotic about them together—they can convey a certain power. They are a coven, and they are vulnerable, and this mix intrigues me.”
During book club discussion, we also shared some other horror works, which I’m going to list here for you:
The Lottery, a short story by Shirley Jackson
Out There, a story by Kate Folk
The Substance, a horror film from Coralie Fargeat
My Heart is a Chainsaw, a novel by Stephen Graham Jones
The Road, a novel by Cormac McCarthy, which is also available as a graphic novel.
WEEKEND READING
Leaning into spooky season with a spine-tingling suggestion!
Where Sleeping Girls Lie (Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé)
This YA novel is set in a boarding school. There’s a character called Persephone and a popular girl clique called the Unholy Trinity. And then a student goes missing.
This has been my weekend reading and it is ticking all of the creepy themed boxes.
ACTS OF RESISTANCE
Just two years after the murder of Mahsa Amini, Iranian women continue to fight for bodily autonomy. On the 2nd November, 30 year old Ahou Daryaei, a French language student at Tehran’s Azad University, took a brave stand against Iran’s strict hijab laws.
Following an altercation with university security over her hijab, in which her clothing was apparently forcibly removed, Ahou stripped down to her underwear in protest. She was promptly escorted off the premises and taken away by the police. The university have since come out and accused her of having mental health issues. Because a strong and defiant woman must have something wrong with her, psychologically speaking.
Worryingly, we have no news of Ahou since her arrest. The country’s recently elected President, Masoud Pezeshkian, is saying one thing—that compulsory dress laws will be relaxed—while imposing harsher restrictions that seek to completely control women and how they dress.
I am thinking of Ahou, her family, and her loved ones, and wishing for her safe return.
SEEN ON SUBSTACK
Boy books, girl books, and the politics of reading by
illustrates the lack of enthusiasm among young boys when it comes to reading books with female protagonists. Running a book club means that I often think of how little effort men put into seeking out women writers and centring the female experience in their reading choices. It is especially frustrating—and frightening—when you consider how this can play out in politics and presidential elections (51% of US women versus 32% of men rated abortion as extremely important to their vote.)“Because in my experience teaching high school English, it was made abundantly clear to me over and over and over again that while no one gave a second thought to asking girls to read books about men, the idea that boys would be able to connect to stories about girls and women was dismissed outright.”
In the restful houses of women who live alone by
is a lovely meditation on creating a home life, as a woman, that is not centred around co-habitation and partnership with a man. Making a home for oneself is a topic of conversation that crops up again and again with my expat friends living in Paris. The comments section is also worth your time. Having shared my living space with a partner for 15 years now, the “together-alone” idea really spoke to me.“Many years ago, I didn’t fully understand how important a home is, and who you let into it, until it became a space that was fraught. We aren’t raised to question whether or not we want to co-habit with our partner – it’s a given. Women especially are raised to feel grateful to have a partner at all, let alone consider whether the person in question is evolved enough to take care of themselves so we don’t have to.”
The fury gap by
speaks of the rising trend of American women taking themselves off of the dating market—“It’s men’s bad behavior driving them away.”—and the infuriated response from younger women immediately after the US election results who are looking to South Korean feminists and the 4B movement for inspiration.“But to understand for the first time that America would rather elect a rapist than a woman is soul-crushing. Even worse: Realizing just how many men voted for Trump not in spite of his sexual predation—but because of it. As difficult as that epiphany is to bear, it did not take long for this younger generation of women to respond with a resounding fuck that and fuck you.”
Keep stoking that rage and take care,
Lou xx
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