Our Share of Night
A Novel
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4.1 • 98 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
“A masterpiece of supernatural horror.”—The Washington Post
“An enchanting, shattering, once-in-a-lifetime reading experience.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)
The Quietus' #1 Work of Horror Fiction of the 21st Century So Far
One of Reactor Magazine’s Most Iconic Speculative Fiction Books of the 21st Century
ONE OF TIME AND THE ATLANTIC’S TEN BEST NOVELS OF THE YEAR • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S TEN BEST HORROR BOOKS OF THE YEAR • LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD • GOOD MORNING AMERICA BUZZ PICK
A woman’s mysterious death puts her husband and son on a collision course with her demonic family in the first novel to be translated into English by the International Booker Prize–shortlisted author of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed—“the most exciting discovery I’ve made in fiction for some time” (Kazuo Ishiguro).
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The Washington Post, Esquire, Publishers Weekly, BookPage, Book Riot, PopSugar, The New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, Polygon, Tordotcom, Lit Hub, Electric Lit, Commonweal, CrimeReads
“A magnificent accomplishment.”—Alan Moore, author of Watchmen
“A masterpiece of literary horror.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“One of Latin America’s most exciting authors.”—Silvia Moreno-Garcia
A young father and son set out on a road trip, devastated by the death of the wife and mother they both loved. United in grief, the pair travel to her ancestral home, where they must confront the terrifying legacy she has bequeathed: a family called the Order that commits unspeakable acts in search of immortality.
For Gaspar, the son, this maniacal cult is his destiny. As the Order tries to pull him into their evil, he and his father take flight, attempting to outrun a powerful clan that will do anything to ensure its own survival. But how far will Gaspar’s father go to protect his child? And can anyone escape their fate?
Moving back and forth in time, from London in the swinging 1960s to the brutal years of Argentina’s military dictatorship and its turbulent aftermath, Our Share of Night is a novel like no other: a family story, a ghost story, a story of the occult and the supernatural, a book about the complexities of love and longing with queer subplots and themes. This is the masterwork of one of Latin America’s most original novelists, “a mesmerizing writer,” says Dave Eggers, “who demands to be read.”
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Set against Argentina’s late 20th-century military dictatorship, this brutal and lyrical supernatural horror tale asks what it means to be complicit with evil. Juan is the medium for the Order, a cult of rich and powerful people that includes the family of his wife, who died under mysterious circumstances. Only he can channel the Order’s god, the Darkness, who demands acts of grotesque violence, which are easily obscured by the regime’s everyday brutality. Juan’s young son, Gaspar, shows every sign of inheriting Juan’s gifts, which makes him very valuable to the Order. Can Juan protect Gaspar from being drawn into his family’s bloodstained legacy? The story lingers on the bargains we make to protect the ones we love—and the harm those choices leave behind. Our Share of Night turns political terror into an intimate and humane study of love, survival, and the darkness we inherit.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Enriquez (The Dangers of Smoking in Bed) twines sinister flights of occult imagination through the harsh realities of history in this decades-spanning masterpiece of literary horror. After Juan's wife dies in 1981, a grieving Juan and his young son, Gaspar, embark on a road trip to her familial estate in Argentina, which Gaspar will inherit. The loss is made more fraught when Gaspar begins to manifest Juan's ability to see and summon beings from the afterlife and beyond. Juan, a powerful but terminally ill medium, has long been in the grip of the Order, a cult controlled by his late wife's family that strives for immortality while worshipping a mad and distant god. He knows that if Gaspar inherits his abilities, the cult will seize the boy to shape and use him for its own purposes. But if Gaspar hasn't inherited, the Order plans to enact a ritual to keep Juan alive at the cost of Gaspar's life. Juan launches a yearslong deception to save his son from the Order's vampiric grasp, but the Order's roots are far deeper than even Juan realizes—and its grip much harder to slither out of. Enriquez's lush epic pulls no punches, probing the complex intimacies of familial bonds, the draw of darkness, and brutal Argentinian history. This unsettling gothic tale will leave readers shaken.
Customer Reviews
Chilling Family Saga
I loved both the story itself and the way Enriquez constructs it. I say “constructs” because the shifts between POV and time periods are built, making the story into a structure on what kind of evil Juan, Rosario and Gaspar must resist through the decades.
I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it; the story was a building I couldn’t resist exploring, just as the characters can’t resist the hidden place they themselves find. The story is, ultimately about sacrifice. Sacrifices demanded and taken and offered and given.