25 May / Among the Hedges by Sara Mesa, translated by Megan McDowell [in Shelf Awareness]
*STARRED REVIEW
Beyond familial bonds, is a relationship between an almost-14-year-old girl and a 54-year-old man possible? Intriguing Spanish writer Sara Mesa – who presented all manner of inappropriate relationships in Four by Four – continues to explore highly charged power dynamics in Among the Hedges, translated by award-winning Megan McDowell.
She’s called Soon, as in “soon-to-be fourteen.” Being “fifty-four now,” the old man is exactly that – earning his Old Man appellation. Soon is truant, avoiding constant bullying by hiding daily among the hedges in a park a half-hour from home. Old Man just appears one day, intruding into her haven, speaking of birds, before he apologizes because “he talks too much” and abruptly leaves. But he returns the next day. And the days after. Soon, initially wary, shares a few fabrications but “stops lying out of laziness.” After having “no one who listen[ed] … now she’s at least found this man, Old Man, who only talks about birds and Nina Simone, and who never lies.” Their weekday ritual expands to include snacks and drinks – and fractured secrets. Talk of “Sudden Urgent Transfer” of schools and even marriage leads to tragic consequences.
Obvious or predictable could never describe Mesa’s narrative here. Her sly hints – especially when she repeats words like “made up,” “fabricating,” “lying” – are clearly meant to manipulate readers in various directions, right or wrong, truth or not. “She can’t end up without a story to tell,” Soon insists to herself – regardless of the potentially dangerous results. Mesa, meanwhile, prods, enables, challenges, maybe even misleads. Satisfaction – of sorts – arrives in Mesa’s concluding “Part Two,” which shrewdly reveals the bittersweet outcome beyond the hedges.
Discover: Award-winning Spanish writer Sara Mesa brilliantly, unpredictably explores highly charged power dynamics between an almost-14-year-old girl and a 54-year-old stranger.
Review: “Fiction,” Shelf Awareness, May 25, 2021
Readers: Adult
Published: 2018 (Spain), 2021 (United States)