Woodworm

Martinez debuts with a sophisticated ghost story about a former nanny suspected of involvement in a child’s disappearance. The unnamed young woman has just been detained because of her suspected connection to the mysterious disappearance of her wealthy employer’s son, Guillermo Jarabo. After her release for lack of evidence, she moves back in with her grandmother, her only surviving relative, in the house she grew up in somewhere near Madrid. Ostracized by the villagers and scrutinized by journalists, the women spend their days confined to their dilapidated house, which has long been haunted by ghosts who exasperate them with constant muttering. The spirits are woven into their family’s legacy: the house was purchased by the grandmother’s physically abusive father, whose wife later killed him at the ghosts’ urging, an act that instilled in her the family’s “woodworm itch” to do rotten things (for her part, the grandmother believes her granddaughter intentionally let Guillermo wander off). As the narrative alternates between the perspectives of the granddaughter and grandmother, Martinez reveals how Guillermo’s disappearance connects to the women’s long struggle against poverty and their family’s contentious relationship with the Jarabos. Martinez breathes new life into the classic haunted house motif through her vivid exploration of generational trauma, violence, misogyny, and class. Readers won’t soon forget this striking tale. (May)