Eartheater

by Dolores Reyes, Julia Sanches (Translator)

Overview

NAMED A "FALL 2020 MUST-READ" AND ONE OF THE "BEST BOOKS OF FALL 2020" BY TIME, VULTURE, THE BOSTON GLOBE, COSMOPOLITAN, WIRED, TOR 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 But when Eartheater begins an unlikely relationship with a withdrawn police officer, word of her ability begins to spread, and soon desperate members of her community beg for her help, anxious to uncover the truth about their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.

Translated from the Spanish by Julia Sanches

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062987730
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	11/17/2020
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	178,381
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Dolores Reyes was born in Buenos Aires in 1978. She is a teacher, feminist, activist, and the mother of seven children. She studied classical literature at the University of Buenos Aires. Eartheater is her first novel.

Editorial Reviews

08/10/2020

A high school dropout reluctantly uses her clairvoyant power to find missing women and children in Argentinian writer Reyes’s lurid debut. The unnamed narrator develops a habit of eating dirt in the wake of her mother’s violent death, earning her the name Eartheater and shame for her family, especially the aunt now raising her and her older brother, Walter. When a beloved teacher goes missing, the young teenage narrator eats the dirt from the school’s courtyard and draws an explicit picture of the teacher’s body outside of a nightclub, which gets her sent to the principal. After the teacher’s body is discovered where the narrator drew her, the aunt leaves the siblings to fend for themselves, and the narrator drops out of school while Walter supports them both by working as a mechanic. The narrator prefers to drink beer and play video games with Walter and his friends from their unnamed barrio, and occasionally accepts cash for her visions from family members of missing people. Reyes crafts an alluring, unsettling edge to the plot developments, including the narrator’s first sexual experiences and the city’s pervasive violence, by collapsing the narrator’s age and the passage of time, preserving aspects of her young girlhood and her angst-ridden teenage years as she grows older. Reyes’s coming-of-age portrait stands out for her unflinching look at a teen’s exploration of sex and death. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Dolores Reyes’s writing is visceral and urgent. It’s also connected to a powerful tradition of fantasy and crime, and it reflects on violence against women with enormous lucidity.

Mariana Enriquez

A raw and vital literary debut, Eartheater takes an unwavering and visceral look at systems of power through the perspective of a young woman caught in the crosshairs.

Shelf Awareness

Dolores Reyes’s harsh and sensitive lyricism explodes in your hands.

Gabriela Cabezón Cámara

"In Reyes' hands, this coming-of-age novel flowers into a meditation on death, and the earth all children will eat in the end."

New York Observer

One of the most outstanding Latin American short novels of the year.

New York Times

A powerful story whose narrator wields brutally honest observations on the intersections of class, poverty, and gender. Reyes’ debut is a strong addition to the growing body of Latin American crime fiction in the U.S. market. A stirring genre blend of fantasy and crime fiction that combines graceful prose and magic realism.” 

Booklist (starred review)

"With its own shining light and singular voice, Eartheater follows in the footsteps of such essential authors as Juan Rulfo and Sara Gallardo.

Selva Almada

★ 10/01/2020

DEBUT When a girl from an Argentine slum eats the dirt in which her dead mother has been buried, she starts having visions of people missing or dead. Paramount among them is her teacher, Señorita Ana, gang-raped and murdered, who offers guidance while badgering her to track down her killers. The Eartheater, as the protagonist becomes known, is both shunned for her sometimes danger-inducing behavior—her sort-of boyfriend and the aunt who initially took responsibility for her and her brother quickly leave—and sought out by people desperate to locate loved ones, giving her dirt associated with them to eat. The missing are mostly women, as first-time Argentine novelist Reyes highlights the numerous awful incidents of femicide in Latin America. Among them is Maria, whose case gets the Eartheater involved with Ezequiel, a steady policeman she initially distrusts, and the book ends in a moment of heady vengeance. VERDICT The premise might initially be hard to swallow, but Reyes succeeds in making the feisty Eartheater and her visions both persuasive and affecting. Kudos to Sanches for effectively rendering Argentine slang.

Library Journal

2020-09-02
In a violent Argentinian slum, a schoolgirl reckons with the clairvoyant experiences she has while eating earth: vivid visions of missing women and children.

When her mother dies, the unnamed narrator develops an unusual compulsion to eat dirt and discovers the truth of her mother's killing, in all its betrayal and brutality. The earth, she finds, bestows her with visions of other people—murdered or missing, dead or alive—an ability that earns her the admonishment of her aunt, who grows crueler as word of the girl's abilities spreads. When a young teacher disappears, the narrator eats earth from the schoolyard for answers, which are revealed in a drawing she makes depicting the teacher’s naked body, tied to posts outside a warehouse. The body is discovered in the precise location of the drawing, and, fed up with the humiliation her niece has brought upon their family, the aunt leaves the girl and her older brother, Walter, to raise themselves. As she tries to live with some semblance of normality—dropping out of school, playing video games and drinking beer with Walter and his friends, experiencing first love—the young woman struggles with her earth-eating habit, craving it yet repelled by what it shows her. Out of need, though, she accepts money from people whose loved ones have gone missing, including a stoic and aloof police officer, in whom she unexpectedly finds an ally and romantic companion. In a voice that is terse, blunt, and biting, the narrator reckons with the impact of her visions on her health and relationships, as she witnesses more and more the ways fear and violence shape the experiences of the women in her community.

Compelling and visceral, Reyes’ debut combines mystery and coming-of-age to evoke the stories of the victims of femicide.

Kirkus Reviews

Read More