This World Does Not Belong to Us

Ecuadorian writer García Freire debuts with the disquieting and visceral story of a banished son’s revenge. Lucas, the strange, insect-obsessed son of a violent father and abused madwoman, returns to the manor house of his childhood after years away, including some time spent in slavery. The setting is atmospheric though opaque—there’s an “old gramophone” but no cars yet. He encounters Eloy and Felisberto, two unsavory men who arrived as guests in his youth. In monologues, he blames his father for allowing them to take over the property, where his mother’s gardens and father’s grave are overgrown. Now, his return signals the end of their reign. As Lucas plots to reclaim his home, he addresses his dead father about what happened and who he’s become: “For now, I’m as docile and obedient as a circus animal. Circus animals plan great catastrophes, which is why they’re kept in cages.” The property’s insect inhabitants are ever present, some even personified, like the spider whom Lucas names Señorita Nancy, and they offer fodder for Lucas’s potent meditation (“When I felt... as alone as a beetle inside an egg that never hatches, all I wanted was to return to this house”). García Freire unearths a brilliant sense of the miraculous from the swarming and putrid subject matter. The result is beautifully macabre. Agent: Marina Penalva, Casanovas & Lynch. (May)