Safe Return Doubtful

translated from the Spanish by Kevin Gerry Dunn – published 2024

These are stories with deception, not heading where you would expect them to, and far from being normal. They may begin in the mundanity of everyday life but before long they head into a realm of fantastical sex or ethereal violence, but always with the voice of women fighting back against lives they will not accept.

Bastarós is from Zaragoza, and I found myself embarking on these stories while in the area. Even more coincidentally, I read one of the stand-out stories in the collection, much of Notre Dame Gone To The Ashes, takes place in the mountain resort of Panticosa, from which I was a couple of valleys to the east.

Girls Don’t typifies the collection. The tension ramps up to a rewarding climax, with the principal conflict of the story pushing accepted limits and yet being visually striking; not only can grief be a surrender to emotion, but an act of wanton destruction.
A strategy Bastarós uses is an absence of named characters. In another of the best, The Birthday Girl the menace is simply ‘the man’. The reader is instantly drawn in, the threat could be anyone, perhaps close by..

One or two may not make the mark, but they are overwhelmed by the majority, some of which are unforgettable. The dark humour, used so strikingly as to provide a moment of levity in the most tense of situations, further demonstrates the potential of the author, for whom this is her first English translation. It’s fascinating to see what will follow.

My GoodReads score 4 / 5