Fernanda Melchor’s short novel is another to add to the compendium of contemporary visions of a Mexico which has been scarred by violent crime. Reviewer notes at the front of the book mention 2666, but this novel feels closer to Escalante’s Heli, as a touchstone. Melchor interrogates the crudeness of a macho violent culture through two characters, Polo and Franco. Franco is the wealthy Fatboy loser who lives with his grandparents in a gated community. Polo is the young odd-job-man who Franco befriends with free alcohol. Polo despises Franco, who lusts foolishly over a middle aged neighbour, but his own desperation means he allows himself to get sucked in to Franco’s plan to rape her whilst Polo plunders. This frightful and foolish mission is described at the end of the book in pages of machine gun prose. Behind Polo’s desperation there lurks the presence of his cousin, Milton, who has been coerced by the narcos into working for them, something which has obviously destroyed Milton but which Polo envies. For Polo, Milton’s new status means money and power, whereas for Milton it clearly means moral degradation and hopelessness. This is a short, brutal novel, steeped in the evil of men and the things men do. Mexico bleeds through its pages, a Mexico where no-one is safe, even those living on a gated community, seemingly immune to the violence of the world that prowls beyond the confines of the perfect lawns and swimming pools. But most of all, Melchor represents the violence through the hopeless cynicism of Polo and Franco, two characters who are devoid of moral compass, having no need of this in a world which has no respect for morality.
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