October 1, 2023
In present-day Buenos Aires, a woman beset with worries about her terminally ill mother and her own heavy self-doubts wanders a cemetery, meeting another woman who turns out to be a vampire, having arrived from Europe in the 19th century. From there, the relationship explodes. A prolific Argentine author and founding editor of a press focusing on women, Yuszczuk makes her U.S. debut. Prepub Alert.
Copyright 2023 Library Journal
Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
January 15, 2024
Yuszczuk raises more questions than she answers in her atmospheric but muddled and meandering U.S. debut. It appears to be narrated in the first person by two different women, though even this scaffolding is set up to be questioned. Both women are nameless; both are disconnected from their human communities; both thirst for more than they can articulate. One of them is a vampire, who over the course of the novel’s first half, describes her brief human servitude to a vampiric master before being turned and haunting Europe for centuries, until her escape to the New World in the 1800s became expedient. The story’s credibility falters when she describes “the skin of the Black women” in Buenos Aires as something she “had never seen before,” despite having lived in cities as diverse as Bratislava, Hamburg, and Vienna. This failure of authorial research and imagination characterizes the vampiric monologue: a string of implausible sex-and-murder tableaux heavily inflected by de Sade and Angela Carter, all poetically but superficially described and building to nothing. Part two brings in the possible second voice, a woman in contemporary Buenos Aires wrestling with the impending death of her mother. By that point, however, many readers will already have grown impatient. This does not live up to its potential. Agent: Elianna Kan, Regal Hoffman.
February 15, 2024
A vampire who has seen the rise and fall of civilizations and a young woman struggling to cope with her mother's terminal illness become unlikely companions in the city of Buenos Aires. In Yuszczuk's novel--her first to be published in the U.S.--the streets of Buenos Aires run red with blood. Told in two parts that span the course of several centuries, the story begins with a nameless vampire recounting the exceedingly violent events of her long and lonely life. After witnessing the brutal deaths of her Maker and her sisters at the hands of enraged villagers--in a scene that is delightfully reminiscent of old black-and-white monster movies--she flees Europe for the distant coast of Argentina. Soon to be ravaged by the arrival of yellow fever, Buenos Aires provides her with an endless supply of fresh blood and the anonymity and discretion that she so greatly desires. As time passes, though, the city proves itself to be equally unsafe for a creature of the night. In the wake of betrayal and tragedy brought on by her nature, and after meeting a young cemetery groundskeeper who is entranced by both her beauty and her monstrosity, she locks herself inside a coffin in an abandoned tomb to live out a solitary and thirsty eternity. The story picks up years later in a modern Buenos Aires with a young woman who is struggling to help care for her ailing mother as well as with her own motherhood. As she traverses the city, telling readers about her life with an alarmingly robotic sense of remove, she comes into possession of a mysterious key that has been passed down through her family and which eventually leads her to the vampire's tomb. Sex and violence take center stage in this gothic tale as the horrors that Buenos Aires and Yuszczuk's characters face continue to slowly unfurl. The novel takes its time, building gradually to the electric moment when the two women finally meet, but it struggles with pacing and tends to tell readers about its world rather than show them. What truly shines are the author's knowledge of vampire lore and her dedication to creating a monster who could easily join the ranks of Dracula and Nosferatu. A blood-soaked tale of sex, love, and ennui that would make Anne Rice proud.
COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Starred review from February 15, 2024
Separated by 150 years, two female beings, one living and one undead, grapple with questions of life, death, and immortality. Argentinian writer Yuszczuk's first novel published in the U.S. is a vivid portrait of a nameless young woman forced into the world of the undead, obsessed by an insatiable need for sustenance and connection and driven solely to feed both hungers. Readers experience the world through her perspective as opposed to that of her victims. The author highlights the erotic aspects of the undead woman's drive as well; she is seductive even as she realizes how people are both attracted and repulsed by her, sometimes simultaneously. Yet she is fierce, independent, clever, and insightful about herself and the world. Yuszczuk's second narrative, of the woman living in contemporary times, is more subdued, as the character faces down what it means to die. Mesmerizingly translated by Cleary, Yuszczuk's prose is meticulous, vibrant, propulsive, and masterfully paced. Her characterizations will stir readers' emotions, empathy in particular; we suffer characters' longings, their mournful feelings of being locked into inescapable circumstances. Thirst is an intense, haunting, and captivating novel that draws readers in from beginning to end.
COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.