Anoxia

Spanish writer Hernández makes his English-language debut with the macabre and stimulating story of a woman drawn into the world of mortuary photography. More than a decade after the untimely death of Dolores’s husband, Luis, she remains locked in grief, and she accepts a job at a funeral home out of a curiosity she can’t quite explain. Her elderly boss, Clemente Artes, wants to pass the baton now that his health is deteriorating. As he trains Dolores, her love of photography reignites, helping her better grapple with Luis’s death as she considers the nature of mourning and what it means to capture lost moments—and people—through photography. But as she digs into Artes’s past, unsettling suspicions arise that force her to question his passion for the work and, in turn, her friendship with him. Dolores’s uncanny feelings build as her town is plagued by floods, giving this exploration of grief a gravitas that edges on the gothic, even as Hernández’s style remains sober and satisfyingly understated. This will linger in readers’ minds. (Feb.)