Genre: horror novella
Translated: Sophie Hughes & Annie McDermott
Published: Two Lines Press, May 2024, originally published by Editorial Amor de Madre in 2021
My Review: 4/5 stars
“My father had not given her that house, he had condemned her to live in it. It had been built on the bodies of all those women and now my mother’s body kept it standing. Her pain and fear. It wasn’t a gift, it was a curse.”
Woodworm is a haunted-house-story in the shape of a confession, told by two generations of women who are worn-out by the burden of the secrets they’ve kept for so long. Within only 125 pages, Layla Martinez delivers a stark portrait of a strained familial relationship, covering themes of inheritance, trauma, class, and the cyclical nature of violence.
What I loved:
The label of “modern gothic” seems to be plastered on anything remotely haunted-house related, but in this case I feel that description is fitting. From page one, Woodworm’s lingering atmosphere of dread, buried secrets and “the unspoken” is the star of the show. It paints an striking picture in your mind, both literally and figuratively, from its very first page. Imagery and visuals of insect-like angels and patrons, to a hungry wardrobe that literally consumes men, underline a portrait of a family worn to the bone and pushed to the brink by repeated violence.
The events around the house are presented to us through the alternating perspectives of the grandmother and granddaughter, as well as the noticeable gap of the missing mothers narrative between them. It again, mirrors the importance of the things this family don’t talk about, and the way those things grow fangs and claws because of it. I found this novella brilliant in its use of narrative voice; both in the aforementioned alternating points of view, as well as the tone both grandma and granddaughter use. They recount their experienced matter-of-fact, resigned and almost like a confession by someone grown tired of the weight of the sins.
Finally, I love how this book about a haunting manages to convey that “haunting” onto me as the reader. After finishing it, I found myself ruminating on its themes, images and the lingering dread that stayed with me for far longer than I actually spent reading the story. It’s one of those books that made me want to speak to other people about it; exchange thoughts and engage with it together. In many ways, I feel this would make for an excellent book-club pick, and I personally love books that invite this way of thinking about them beyond their final page.
What I didn’t love:
This is very much a “themes/vibes-over-plot” kind of novel, which will surely put some people off of it. I personally didn’t mind too, but would’ve loved to see The House a little more in action. Scenes where its strange interactions with the family were on display (see the aforementioned man-eating-wardrobe) were genuinely creepy and some of the best.
Then of course, I have to mention my very specific personal gripe in terms of writing: why would you not use proper punctuation, specifically quotation marks to indicate a character is speaking?! I realize this is a petty complaint, but it’s such a small detail, with such a large impact on my personal enjoyment of a book.
Overall; a short book that left a long-lasting impression. Ingeniously constructed and wonderfully translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott.
You can find this book here on Goodreads.
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