The Houseguest and Other Stories

I was walking through the bookstore last week when this cover caught my eye. I flipped to the back cover and took it all in; "Like those of Kafka, Poe, or Shirley Jackson," "a writer obsessed with obsession," "nightmares come to life." It was everything I was looking for.

It's essentially a book of short horror stories. There were a few that stuck out to me, Fragment of a Diary, Musique Conrete, Tina Reyes, The Breakfast, and The Funeral. For some reason these stories spoke to me the most. Fragment of a Diary really resonated with me. It was raw and uncontrollable. Each of these stories spoke on love, lust, isolation, and fear. I've been in an incredibly vulnerable place lately so I can't even begin to describe the emotions I felt while reading all 122 pages of this book.

This is Amparo Davila's first book to be translated into English. It's my understanding that all of these desperate themes are found throughout her work. If more of her work isn't translated soon.....I'm going to pull out my high school Spanish lessons and do it myself!