Our Share of Night
 | |
| Author | Mariana Enríquez |
|---|---|
| Original title | Nuestra parte de noche |
| Translator | Megan McDowell |
| Language | Spanish |
| Genre | horror, Latin American Gothic |
| Publisher | Anagrama (Spanish), Penguin Random House (English) |
Publication date | 2019 |
Published in English | 2023 |
| Awards | Premio Herralde |
Our Share of Night (Spanish: Nuestra parte de noche) is a 2019 horror novel by Argentine author Mariana Enriquez. Set between 1960 and 1997, the story follows the Peterson family and the story of an occult society in Argentina. The novel received positive reviews, and won the Premio Herralde in 2019. An English translation by Megan McDowell was published in 2023.
Plot
[edit]1981: Juan
[edit]Juan Peterson and his son Gaspar take a road trip from Buenos Aires to Iguazú.
3 months earlier, Juan's wife and Gaspar's mother, Rosario, had died in a bus crash. The couple were part of a secret society known as the Order, which worships an ancient god that they call the Darkness. The secret society hopes that the Darkness will give them a way to immortality by permanently keeping their consciousness alive. Juan, the son of poor Swedish immigrants, has suffered from an incurable heart condition since a young age. He was discovered by Rosario's uncle, a doctor and member of the Order, who operated on his heart and took him away from his parents, and was picked by the Order to be a medium due to his supernatural abilities. All mediums die early, and Juan is afraid that Gaspar has inherited his abilities and will be exploited by the order.
During the road trip, Juan and Gaspar meet with Rosario's half-sister, Tali; Juan also tries to contact Rosario's spirit in vain. At one point, he summons a demon to try to find her. The demon tells him Rosario has been taken by the darkness, which he refuses to believe.
Once they arrive in Iguazú, Juan participates in a yearly sacrificial ritual, known as the Rite, where the Darkness eats several sacrifices. He confronts the three leaders of the Order - Anne Clarke, Florence Mathers, and Rosario's mother Mercedes - about her death. They tell him that they had organized her death, as they feared that she was plotting against them, and sent her spirit into the Darkness, because the only way he could find her spirit would be through the ritual, thus obliging him to continue being their medium. Later that night, he confronts Mercedes alone, and rips out her teeth and lips. He then makes Tali and his friend and occasional lover Stephen promise to keep Gaspar safe from the Order should he die.
1985-1987: Gaspar
[edit]Gaspar's friend Vicky loses her dog. The four friends - Gaspar, Vicky, Pablo and Adela - search for the dog to no avail. That night, Gaspar dreams of the dog scratching the window and whining. When he goes to look for the dog, his father catches him and informs him the dog is dead. Gaspar later finds the dog's corpse in a park.
Juan, since Rosario's death, has been physically and emotionally abusive to Gaspar. One night, while drunk, he shows Gaspar a box of human eyelids, shocking and disgusting him. The incident makes Gaspar remember another incident where Juan had gone to an abandoned house in the neighborhood; Gaspar had tried to follow him but was caught, beaten and locked for a full day in a room without food or drink.
Juan and Gaspar take a trip to Chascomús to visit Rosario's family. Gaspar wakes up bruised, naked and with an injured ankle in an unknown room. His father and a doctor enter, and the doctor claims that on the way to Chascomús, they were in a car accident. Gaspar does not believe her, as he remembers his father injuring him and a strange ritual, but Juan denies it.
One night, Juan has a fight with Gaspar; he cuts him open with a piece of glass and bites the wound. He then cuts himself open and forces Gaspar to drink his blood. Soon after, Juan suffers an ischemic stroke and dies. His brother Luis arrives from Brazil to adopt Gaspar.
Meanwhile, Gaspar's friend Adela, who has a missing arm (a reference to the story Adela's House from Enríquez' Things We Lost In the Fire[1]), grows obsessed with the abandoned house that Juan visited, believing that clues related to her missing father, who was possibly kidnapped by the junta, could be found there. She convinces the other three to enter the house with her. In the house, Adela enters a room that the others are unable to enter; Gaspar manages to escape the house with the other two, but Adela is never found.
1960-1976: Rosario
[edit]Rosario's family, the Bradfords, arrive in Argentina in the 1800s, and become one of the wealthiest families in Argentina. Rosario herself meets Juan when she is eight and he is five, and they quickly become good friends. As an adult, Rosario travels to London and becomes the first Argentine to graduate as a doctor of anthropology from Cambridge. After some years, Juan arrives in London as well with Stephen, and the three open a door that leads to a forest of human corpses and bones. They realize this "Other Place" is part of the Darkness.
The backstory of the Order is revealed: it was established by a wealthy Englishman, Stephen's ancestor, who abducted an African woman and made her serve as a medium for the Order until she died. The Order since then has been keeping children to use as mediums and established branches all over the world, including in Argentina. One fourteen-year-old medium, raped by Stephen's grandfather and left pregnant, murdered all the members of the Argentine branch of the Order and committed suicide while Stephen's mother Florence was in London. Since then, Florence rebuilt the branch with new members. She tried to make her younger son, Eddie, become a medium, but Eddie loses his mind and runs away. Rosario, Stephen and Juan plan to leave England, but before they do, Eddie finds them first, and kills several young members of the Order and attempts to kill them as well. Juan overpowers Eddie, kills him, and hangs him from a tree in the Other Place.
After the marriage of Rosario and Juan and the birth of Gaspar, Florence and Mercedes tell Rosario how immortality can be attained: a medium can transfer his consciousness to the body of his child once the child turns twelve. Therefore, they want Juan to transfer his consciousness to Gaspar. Juan and Rosario fight, as this would mean the death of Gaspar's soul, and Juan leaves. When he returns, he tells Rosario that he will put a seal on Gaspar to keep the Order from finding him once he turns twelve. To obtain this seal, he must sacrifice something to the Darkness, and to put the seal into effect, he must injure Gaspar; he will also give the child to his brother Luis to raise.
Rosario's estranged cousin Betty returns with her daughter Adela. Rosario warns Betty not to participate in the ceremony, but Betty does so anyway, and the Darkness eats part of Adela's arm. Juan and Rosario decide after this to move to Buenos Aires and take Betty and Adela to live near them as well.
1987-1997: Gaspar
[edit]After the trauma of Adela's disappearance and his father's death, Gaspar is adopted by his uncle Luis. He is diagnosed with PTSD and hallucinations caused by epilepsy, although he doubts that his hallucinations are truly hallucinations. In addition, he suffers from bursts of uncontrollable anger. Luis has twins with his girlfriend, who at first is kind to Gaspar, but grows to fear and dislike him.
Gaspar's girlfriend Marita, who works as a journalist, is given an article to edit for publication. The article concerns an investigation into Adela's disappearance; the journalist describes a drunken rant by Betty about how Juan had sacrificed her daughter to the darkness in order to save his own son. The journalist also describes how she attempted to find Gaspar, but was supernaturally blocked each time, and so gave up on the investigation.
Soon after, Luis disappears. A few days afterward, he is brought to the hospital dying. His chest was cut open and a girl's rotting arm was inserted into it; this causes sepsis and his death. Gaspar, in order to protect his friends and Luis' children from further being attacked, goes to the house of his grandparents, where he is kept against his will.
Mercedes tells him that she ordered the torture and death of Luis, and that the car accident that Gaspar had been involved in was not a car accident, but an attempt to transfer Juan's consciousness to Gaspar and thus obtain immortality. Although it had been successful, Gaspar, with the help of Juan, had forced his consciousness out of his body. She also reveals that Juan had in fact sacrificed Adela to the Darkness to save Gaspar from the Order. Now that he has come of his own free will to the Order, they will use him to obtain immortality.
Gaspar discovers that he can open the door to the Other Place, as his father was able to do. He and Stephen trick the Order, including Mercedes and Florence, into entering the other place; the two then lock the door to the Other Place, thus destroying the Order forever.
Reception
[edit]The novel received mostly positive reviews. Elena Santos, writing for the journal Guaraguao, called it one of the most ambitious works of Latin American Gothic literature and Hispanophone literature in recent years.[2] Elizabeth Gonzalez James of the Los Angeles Review of Books called the novel a "masterwork", while Danielle Trussoni, writing for the New York Times, called it a "enchanting, shattering, once-in-a-lifetime reading experience."[3][4]
Sam Byers writing for The Guardian, gave a negative review, criticizing the translation, structure, and lack of focus.[5] Siobhan Murphy of The Times praised the premise, but criticized the characters, narrative, and "gratuitous" sexual elements of the story. Miranda France of the Times Literary Supplement praised Enríquez' treatment of political themes, but criticized the pace of the novel.[6]
The novel was named one of the ten best novels of 2023 by The Atlantic and one of the 100 best books of 2023 by Time magazine and the New York Times.[7][8][9] Reactor Magazine named it one of the most iconic speculative fiction books of the 21st century.[10]
Awards
[edit]- 2019, Premio Herralde[11]
- 2022, Grand prix de l'Imaginaire étranger[12]
References
[edit]- ^ "Mariana Enriquez: "Hay pocos enfermos en la literatura y es interesante narrar esas cabezas"" [Mariana Enriquez: "There are few ill people in literature and it is interesting to narrate these minds"]. Clarín (in Spanish). 20 January 2020. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
- ^ Santos, Elena (2022). "Reseña de Nuestra parte de noche". Guaraguao. 26 (69): 185–188. ISSN 1137-2354. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
- ^ Gonzalez James, Elizabeth (6 February 2023). "They Toss Bodies at You: On Mariana Enríquez's "Our Share of Night"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 29 July 2025.
- ^ Trussoni, Danielle. "A Gorgeous, Dazzling Novel and a Mouthpiece for Human Darkness". New York Times. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
- ^ Byers, Sam (27 October 2022). "Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríquez review – political horror". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
- ^ France, Miranda. "An Argentine writer imagines a horrifying cross-century cult". Times Literary Supplement. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
- ^ "The Atlantic 10: The Best Books of 2023". The Atlantic. 5 December 2023. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
- ^ "'Our Share of Night' Is One of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2023". Time. 14 November 2023. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
- ^ "100 Notable Books of 2023". The New York Times. 21 November 2023. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
- ^ Orlando, Christina (30 October 2024). "The Most Iconic Speculative Fiction Books of the 21st Century". Reactor. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
- ^ Fernández, Laura (4 November 2019). "Mariana Enríquez gana el Herralde con una novela "monstruo"". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 30 July 2025.
- ^ Deslogis, Thomas (2 May 2022). "«Notre part de nuit» de Mariana Enríquez, un mastodonte de littérature et de liberté". Slate (in French). Retrieved 30 July 2025.