Review: A Sunny Place for Shady People

3/5 stars

A Sunny Place for Shady People, by Mariana Enriquez (2024)

Translated by Megan McDowell

I wish I liked this more, because I freakin' love the title... Which, it turns out, is a quote from author W. Somerset Maugham in speaking about the French Riviera. * shrug *

This is a story collection where each narrative focuses in some way on death or its aftermath, and body horror - "a subgenre of horror fiction where fear comes from the grotesque, unnatural, and unwanted transformation, destruction, or violation of the physical body," as opposed to more traditional horror that focuses on external violence. I've seen it described as "Lovecraftian horror," which doesn't really mean anything to me because I haven't read him, but it might to you!

It started out strong with the first few stories, and I had high hopes, especially as most of them focused on women. A woman in a neighborhood haunted by ghosts, including her mother, finds she can communicate with them. A women working in a used clothing store receives clothing from an odd man, only to find that putting them on invokes the feelings the previous wearer, the man's wife, had before her death. I thought these stories were interesting and unique. But after a while, I found the tropes began to feel repetitive.

I enjoyed the commentary Enriquez seems to be making about her home country of Argentina, highlighting neglected populations, burned out neighborhoods, and gender-based violence. What I didn't like was her tendency to portray disability or disease as creating fear in others, or perpetuating a stereotype that larger people (in this case, a woman who is described as "fat" in the most callous language) are lesser in some way - either unhealthy or mentally ill (or both).

I also really didn't like the short story based on the real-life death of Elisa Lam, a young woman who disappeared under mysterious circumstances in an LA hotel in 2013, only to be found two weeks later in a water tank on the roof. While her death was eventually ruled an accident, there are still numerous unanswered questions about whether there was foul-play, &/or a severe mental breakdown at play. While all the other stories of A Sunny Place are fictional (as far as I know), this one describes the loss of a real person. Turning her death into fodder for a story about trying to commune with ghosts felt exploitative and in poor taste.

If I gave half stars, this would be a 2.5.

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UP NEXT: The Mortons, by Justine Larbalestier & Scott Westerfeld