Fever Dream

As the title suggests, this book lingers like a disquieting dream. A mother to a toddler myself, I think of what the protagonist Amanda calls the “rescue distance” often – the ground between herself and her child, should something perilous occur.

This book distills maternal protectiveness and anxiety into something as potent as poison or as powerful as a curse. It makes me want to look over my shoulder, lock the doors, draw the blinds. It carries an air of contagion. I can think of few other reads that evoke such a visceral reaction with such subtle strokes.

This is a wild, one-sitting read. At first you might not know where you are, but after a few pages, you’re completely hooked.

It’s creepy and visceral about what it means to be a mother when the world is turning more and more toxic. It might be considered an eco-horror book. This story works on your subconscious, leaving you with a sticky, unsettling feeling.

Also, it’s translated from Spanish. The title of the Spanish version is The Rescue Distance.    

In this taut novella set in the Argentinian countryside, Schweblin leans into South American magical realism to spin an eco-horror tale about motherhood and loss.

Her ingenious use of narrative style – the entire novella is framed as an increasingly frantic interview between the main character and a very strange boy who may or may not be dead – means that the tension is high from the start and stays that way throughout.

But what really makes this book is the palpable dread that seeps out of every page: you know something is going very wrong and there’s nothing you… show more.

Not all disasters are big and flashy. Some—most—are quiet, ambiguous, and hard to pin down until well after the fact. Fever Dream is a brilliant, unsettling, deeply claustrophobic story that unfurls this sort of disaster in the subtlest and most terrifying way imaginable. Originally published in 2014 (in Spanish, as Distancia de rescate), Fever Dream has appeared on every list of recommended eco-horror fiction in the last few years, and for absolutely good cause.

Originally titled Distancia de Rescate (“The Rescue Distance”), this novel which blends contemporary concerns of environmental catastrophe with the magic of psychics and haunted children is truly a feverish reading experience, one which you will devour in a single sitting and need to restart to understand what was real and what was not.