‘Abyss’ by Pilar Quintana   (2021) – 219 pages                                Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman

The story in ‘Abyss’ is told by an 8 year-old girl which makes it easy to follow. Children as young as eight can sense the undercurrents that are roiling beneath the surface in their family. They have a front row seat for observing marital discord. The daughter Claudia fears her mother will commit suicide. Her father who works long hours at the supermarket he manages is rarely at home.

The place is Cali, a large city in the South American country of Colombia, and the time is the early 1980s.

Claudia’s mother, also named Claudia, spends much of her time in bed reading celebrity magazines. She is fascinated with those female celebrities who have had somewhat mysterious deaths such as Natalie Wood, Grace Kelly, and Karen Carpenter. The daughter Claudia spends a lot of time with her doll Paulina.

The abyss is a large canyon which plays a major role. I suppose an abyss can also be seen as the large gap between people that mental illness causes.

The author Pilar Quintana has learned the lessons of Elena Ferrante. What Elena Ferrante did for family and community life in Florence, Italy, Quintana does for family and community life in Cali, Colombia. Both writers, by closely observing the lives seething around them, turn their cities into a wonderland for the readers. Just as Ferrante gives us the Florence neighborhood through the eyes of a child, Quintana gives us the Cali neighborhood through the eyes of an eight year-old child.

Life is going on all around us, there to be captured.

The publishers of ‘Abyss’ must have realized they had something special on their hands, because the physical design of the paperback version of ‘Abyss’ is outstanding. It feels right in your hands and welcomes you to read it. I’m usually ambivalent, couldn’t care less, about book design. The publishers were right to give this extra fine novel special treatment.

I much appreciated that ‘Abyss’ did not have a neatly wrapped up ending. Life goes on.

Grade:   A