No Place to Bury the Dead

Venezuelan writer Sainz Borgo (It Would Be Night in Caracas) serves up a rich and lyrical tale of desperation and redemption, set during an outbreak of a plague that causes amnesia. Angustias Romero’s twin baby sons have died. Her husband, Salveiro, lacking the funds for a proper burial, is content to leave the bodies in the morgue, while Angustias, evoking the plight of Sophocles’s Antigone, determines to provide the twins with a proper resting place. She turns to a squatter named Visitación Salazar, who runs an illegal cemetery on a plot owned by “corrupt thug” Alcides Abundio. Mezquite, the site of Visitación’s cemetery, is a lawless border town controlled by Alcides, who terrorizes the residents with the mayor’s complicity. As Alcides mounts a violent campaign to seize the cemetery from Visitación and those like Angustias who support Visitación in exchange for free burials, the novel morphs into an exciting crime thriller. The mysterious plague adds to the intrigue and the tension, breaking down trust between Angustias and the taciturn Salveiro, as she worries he’s become infected. Throughout, Sainz Borgo applies stark poetry to the terrifying setting, where “moans and cries attributed to ghosts sometimes masked executions and beatings.” It’s a stunner. (Dec.)