Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird: Stories

In Argentine writer Bazterrica’s provocative collection (after the novel Tender Is the Flesh), scenes of fantastical metamorphoses add a touch of levity to disturbing chronicles of self-mutilation and suicide. “Roberto,” the brief and off-kilter opener, features a schoolgirl with a bunny growing between her legs who’s preyed upon by her math teacher. In “The Continuous Equality of the Circumference,” an allegory of perfection taken to the extreme, protagonist Ada transforms her body into the shape of a circle, first by gaining weight and then by cutting off her arms and legs. In “Elena-Marie Sandoz,” a B-movie actor dies by suicide after receiving a series of letters encouraging her to do so. Here, Bazterrica writes mordantly of the strange compulsion to visit decrepit cemeteries such as the one where Sandoz is buried: “People are capable of anything to dissipate the monotony of their lives.” Even the lighter entries are strangely unsettling, such as “No Tears,” about a family renowned for never crying who attend funerals to make the bereaved laugh. Though the author leans a bit much on shock value, she adds depth to the strange and eerie atmosphere with recurring themes of religion and death (“She wants to be the divine abode in which the sacred is housed,” Bazterrica writes of the self-sacrificing Ada). Vivid and bizarre, this will entrance. Agent: Johanna Castillo, Writers House. (June)