Eartheater

A Novel

By: Dolores Reyes

Narrated by: Frankie Corzo

Length: 3 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

Named a "Fall 2020 Must-Read" and one of the "Best Books of Fall 2020" by Time, Vulture, The Boston Globe, Wired, Cosmopolitan, and more.

Electrifying and provocative, visceral, and profound, a powerful literary debut novel about a young woman whose compulsion to eat earth gives her visions of murdered and missing people - an imaginative synthesis of mystery and magical realism that explores the dark tragedies of ordinary lives.

Set in an unnamed slum in contemporary Argentina, Eartheater is the story of a young woman who finds herself drawn to eating the earth - a compulsion that gives her visions of broken and lost lives. With her first taste of dirt, she learns the horrifying truth of her mother's death. Disturbed by what she witnesses, the woman keeps her visions to herself. But when Eartheater begins an unlikely relationship with a withdrawn police officer, word of her ability begins to spread, and soon desperate members of her community beg for her help, anxious to uncover the truth about their own loved ones.

Surreal and haunting, spare yet complex, Eartheater is a dark, emotionally resonant tale told from a feminist perspective that brilliantly explores the stories of those left behind - the women enduring the pain of uncertainty, whose lives have been shaped by violence and loss.

©2020 Dolores Reyes (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

interesting

“The Eartheater” has received much press and hoopla which for me is good and bad. First the good, without the press, I would not have read it. Also, I would have abandoned it, as I wondered what I was not seeing that garnered all the hoopla. The bad, well, I expected more. I had high expectations and I was a tiny bit disappointed.

The story takes place in Argentina, in the barrio. The unnamed narrator is young at the beginning of the story, living in poverty. Her mother was killed, allegedly by her father. Her aunt is raising her and her brother Walter. The narrator eats dirt and has a vision of her missing teacher’s death. The aunt is embarrassed and leaves the two to raise themselves.

Author, Deloris Reyes, is an Argentinian author and feminist. This novel explores that country’s neglect of protecting women and also the poverty in the slums (barrios). Reyes showcases the violence against women, and the little that authorities do to stop the violence.

The novel sort of leaps from that first dirt eating to later when the narrator has a reputation in the barrio to be able to “see” what happened to missing people, mostly women, if she eats the earth that the person has walked on. The narrator has dropped out of school and lives with her brother Walter who brings in friends and plays computer games. Suddenly she’s old enough to go to bars. It could be something that happened in translation from Spanish to English. At any rate, the narrator is asked by a police officer to help him find a missing woman. Others leave bottles of dirt in her yard with notes, asking for help.

After reading this, I looked up other reviews, and one reviewer stated that eating the earth is a metaphor for staying grounded. The same reviewer felt that the slippery time frame was to show that children of poverty and violence find it necessary to grow up very fast.

It’s a dark story and a sad story. It has opened my eyes up to some of the problems in Argentina, which alone is one of the reasons to read: to learn.

I listened to the audible production, narrated by Frankie Corzo. Julia Sanches is the translator. The translator has a note at the end of the novel. She explains some of her translation choices, as the English language has no feminine and masculine words that occur in Latin languages. Also she informs us that femicide remains widespread in Latin America. In addition, women authors continue to be overlooked on a national scale. Ms. Corzo’s narration was great.

narration is flat.

It could have been great. Perhaps something is lost in translation but the story fell flat. the narration didn't help, her reading is blank. 3 stars because I can see the potential to round out characters, making them more three dimensional and lean into Brujeria. Unfortunately, this didn't hit the way it could have.