Title: WoodwormAuthor: Layla Martínez
Translator: Annie McDermott, Sophie Hughes
First Published: November 2, 2021
Publisher: Two Lines Press
Pages: 144
Genre: Horror
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
Rating:
Synopsis:
The house breathes. The house contains bodies and secrets. The house is visited by ghosts, by angels that line the roof like insects, and by saints that burn the bedsheets with their haloes. It was built by a smalltime hustler as a means of controlling his wife, and even after so many years, their daughter and her granddaughter can’t leave. They may be witches or they may just be angry, but when the mysterious disappearance of a young boy draws unwanted attention, the two isolated women, already subjects of public scorn, combine forces with the spirits that haunt them in pursuit of something that resembles justice.
In this lush translation by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott, Layla Martinez’s eerie debut novel is class-conscious horror that drags generations of monsters into the sun. Described by Mariana Enriquez as “a house of women and shadows, built from poetry and revenge,” this vision of a broken family in our unjust world places power in the hands of the eccentric, the radical, and the desperate.
Review
Nothing thrills me more than discovering a new favorite book, and Woodworm easily tops the list of books I’ve read this year. Woodworm follows a cursed family of women, condemned to a house of shadows, and the generations of tragedy inflicted upon them. The novella spans decades, from the Spanish Civil War to the early 2000s.
The house felt oppressive and bleak, and there were many times I found myself creeped out while reading. The inhabitants of the house were just as creepy, forged by malice and gripped in the throes of madness, despair, and pain. The prose is compulsively readable and feels like a stream of consciousness without a single word wasted, I couldn’t put it down. When I finished, I picked it right back up to read again, I cannot recommend this book enough!
Quote
“I’ve told you before, nobody ever leaves this house. We’re trapped here, us and the shadows. That’s what my mother used to tell me. We’re trapped here till they come and take us, she’d say.”
Content Warnings
View Spoiler »About the Author
About Layla Martínez
Layla Martínez is a writer and translator from Madrid. She writes about music for El Salto, and about television for La Última Hora. Since 2014 she has co-directed the independent publisher Antipersona. Woodworm is her first novel.
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