Safe Return Doubtful

Translated from the Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem

In the upstairs bedroom of a remote house in the mountains of Catalonia an old woman named Bernadette, lies dying. Years before, an ancestor traded her soul for ‘an heir with a patch of land and roof over his head’. Bernadette hoped she had escaped her fate, but every child born in the house since has had some part of their body missing.

As in her previous book, Solà (the ‘Catalan Carter’) is interested in folklore passed down through generations, and particularly in women and witchcraft. This book is every bit as good as [book:When I Sing, Mountains Dance|57693608]. The real enjoyment comes from the language she uses for description, and in that regard, particular credit must be given to the translator, Mara Faye Lethem.

The story here is told across a single day, and in a variety of voices of the women that have inhabited the house over the years, now as ghosts. The narrative is very matter of fact, especially when describing the horrors and hardships. It is rare that there is any sentimentality.

This sweeping, guileful and devious novel is absolute pleasure to read, a celebration of storytelling with imagery that is quite dramatic and striking.

I expect it to be one of my books of the year.

Here’s a clip..

It was such a good hideout, that little cave we’ d found, because it was low, three by four handspans, a badger’s cave; you had to crawl to get in. First your head. And what shitty luck that today, with all this rain, it’s caved in! Bernadeta shut the door. And bolted it. The young men banged on it, and shouted, Please, ma’am, we aren’t armed, we’re very hungry, the little we had got buried, give us something to eat. But Bernadeta wouldn’t have given them anything even if she’d had something to give. Please, ma’am, if they find us they’ll kill us. Let them find you, let them kill you, she thought. Bernadeta stroked his cat whiskers, his belly with eight nipples and womanly breasts, his hooves, his horns, his veiny neck, his goat’s udder. She called him by every name. She whispered them into his ear. All at the same time. She called him Pretty Thing and Ugly Thing, Barn Owl and Hellion, Stranger and Nasty Part. She called him Slayer and Thief of Life, Beloved and Fallen Star, Beast, Shadow King, Rogue, Dragon and Prince of Darkness, Serpent of Old, He-Goat, Tailless Imp, Goatskin and Tempter; she called him Crow, Old Hornie, Baphomet, Little Horns, and Greenhorn. She heard him laughing in the darkness. His was a guttural laugh, and Bernadeta gulped it down because it reeked of damp rock, of anise, and of semen. She would whisper to him, Old Harry, and Lucifer, Gleam in My Eyes and the Sun and the Stars, Midday Sun, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Kitty, First Sinner, Adversary, Cacodemon, Cloven-Hoofed, Deceiver, Bugbear, Devilkins, Bringer of the Dawn, Son of Perdition, Long-Tailed and Short-Tailed, Xiribelles, Lord of the Night, Angel of Light, Scapegrace, Long-Tailed Fart, Beginning and End, Rapscallion, and Scallywag.

My GoodReads score 5 / 5