It Would Be Night in Caracas

Title: It Would Be Night in Caracas
Author: Karina Sainz Borgo
Translator: Elizabeth Bryer
First Published: October 15, 2019
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 224
Genre: Historical Fiction
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Rating:


Synopsis:

In Caracas, Venezuela, Adelaida Falcón stands over an open grave. Alone, except for harried undertakers, she buries her mother–the only family Adelaida has ever known.

Numb with grief, Adelaida returns to the apartment they shared. Outside the window that she tapes shut every night—to prevent the tear gas raining down on protesters in the streets from seeping in. When looters masquerading as revolutionaries take over her apartment, Adelaida resists and is beaten up. It is the beginning of a fight for survival in a country that has disintegrated into violence and anarchy, where citizens are increasingly pitted against each other. But as fate would have it, Adelaida is given a gruesome choice that could secure her escape.

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Review

It Would Be Night in Caracas is a timely novel, taking place in present-day Venezuela, a country that has been in the news for the large number of protests going on in the country. Being a foreigner I didn’t have a deeper understanding of the conflict and why the protests were going on, but reading this book prompted me to start doing research in order to understand the context around the events of the novel. For this reason, I think that this novel was good, it helps shed light on what is going on in Venezuela politically that are lesser-known to those outside of South America.

The deeply internal narrative drifts seamlessly between the present day and the past, starting from Adelaida’s childhood memories at the start of the Latin American debt crisis in the 1970s and 1980s. The debt crisis started when capitalist economies around the world dropped and the price of oil plummeted, causing national currencies to inflate. She relives the Bolivarian Revolution, the way that her country evolved and changed over the years, and eventually details the horrifying events that lead up to the present day, including the student protest killings in 2014. At times the narrative drifts back and forth in time which made it a bit difficult to follow and place the time frame, slowing down the pace significantly.

The book does not shy away from the gritty detail of the deep corruption on all levels that presents a city that is oppressive, eating away at its inhabitants as they all lose bits of their former lives over time. The setting feels desolate and more like a battlefield, a terrifying reality, with clashes between protesters, gangs, and state police blurring the lines of who is who. The novel opens with the death of Adelaida’s mother and namesake. The naming is allegorical in that it shows both the literal and proverbial death of Adelaida Falcón, a Venezuelan woman trapped in a city that is dying. Adelaida’s state of mind is somber and even monotonous as she steadily loses her grip on her life and with it her identity.

I appreciated that this novel explores themes of nationality and how that can contribute to the formation of a person’s identity. How the deterioration of society and poverty can have negative effects on a person’s mental health. I wanted to love this book but I found myself struggling to get through it. It is a character-driven book that moves at a snail’s pace, bogged down by too many side characters that don’t feel important.

The closer I got to the end of the novel, the more bored I became and my knee-jerk reaction was that I didn’t like it. However, the slow-burning plot, drifting narrative, and bloated details made this a less enjoyable read overall. It is a book that I appreciate more as time has gone on because of how searing the subject matter was.

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