Through the Night Like a Snake: Latin American Horror Stories

The chilling stories in this noteworthy anthology feature creepy houses, strange encounters, and body horror. In “Visitor” by Julián Isaza, translated by Joel Streicker, an old woman who lives a quiet, solitary life discovers a strange creature outside her house one night that resembles Kermit the Frog. She develops an ET-and-Elliot-like symbiotic relationship with the creature, who prompts her to take an unsettling action. “The Third Transformation” by Maximiliano Barrientos, translated by Tim Gutteridge, centers on a former metalhead who returns to his small hometown after he hears news that his childhood best friend Eduardo is in a coma. Piecing together accounts from Eduardo’s mother, he realizes his friend had wandered into a house outside of town that was rumored when they were kids to be occupied by a former Nazi. Among the collection’s standouts are Mariana Enriquez’s “That Summer in the Dark,” translated by Megan McDowell, about two bored teenage girls whose obsession with serial killers becomes a close-to-home reality when a neighbor in their apartment complex murders his family; and the dreamy, impressionistic “In the Mountains” by Lina Munar Guevara, translated by Ellen Jones, about a woman driving on a winding mountain road in the fog, following a car that might not be real. This eerie selection of exciting contemporary voices is sure to keep readers up at night. (Mar.)