The Iliac Crest

August 1, 2017
In this surreal queer novel, a mysterious woman disrupts the unhappy life of a doctor and forces him to confront the hidden depths of his gender identity."How is it possible that someone like me allowed an unknown woman in my house on a stormy night?" asks the narrator of Mexican writer Rivera Garza's (No One Will See Me Cry, 2003, etc.) second novel to be translated into English. The unknown woman at the door claims to be Amparo Davila, a major Mexican fantasy and horror writer from the 1950s and '60s. Davila insinuates herself into the narrator's life, weaving a fractured story of a conspiracy that resulted in her disappearance--and a precious stolen manuscript. To the narrator's horror, Davila befriends his spurned former lover, starting up an intimate--and possibly erotic--relationship. The two women devise a secret language he cannot penetrate and, ultimately, reveal the narrator's deepest fears. "I know you are a woman," Davila whispers to the narrator one evening. Convinced that the two women are tormenting him on purpose, the narrator sets out to uncover Davila's secrets so he can be rid of her. His quest leads him through medical archives and the lusty streets of the North City, uncovering doppelgangers and the depths of his own truth. Rivera Garza's taut language drives the mystery forward, and she plays cleverly with the literary and political histories of Mexico, the importance of queer visibility, and the silencing of female authorship. An existential gothic tale about the high stakes of understanding--and accepting--the self.

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Starred review from October 30, 2017
This astounding and thought-provoking novel from Rivera Garza (No One Will See Me Cry) opens during a stormy night: two women visit an unnamed narrator at his oceanside home and gradually unravel his life. The first woman, whom the narrator has never met before, shares the name of neglected Mexican author Amparo Dávila. The second woman arrives shortly after and promptly faints—it’s the narrator’s former partner, whom he refers to as the Betrayed. The narrator, who works at a hospital for terminal patients (“My life among the dead was boring, to be sure, but at least it had the merit of being routine”), becomes increasingly disturbed by the two women, who claim to know his secret. Amparo, meanwhile, says a patient at the narrator’s hospital stole her manuscript, and she wants the narrator to retrieve it for her. This leads the narrator on a journey through his unnamed country (though it’s clearly Mexico) that fractures his sense of reality and shifts his understanding of his own gender. Rivera Garza’s novel succeeds as a suspenseful psychological horror story in the vein of a David Lynch film or Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, as a dissolver of the space between genders, and as a challenge to the cultural erasure of the real-life Dávila. The result is mind-bending.

October 1, 2017
The title of award-winning author, translator, and critic Rivera Garza's deftly translated, elegant little novel refers to that part of the hip bone that can be seen when slender people wear low-slung jeans, and it also invokes the Iliad. On a dark and stormy night, our unreliable narrator opens the door to a mysterious woman, Amparo Davila. When the Betrayedthe guest he was expectingshows up and makes common cause with Davilathe False Oneto the point of coinventing their own baby-talk language, the unnamed narrator becomes obsessed with seeking answers. But his journey of discovery only stirs up more questions. Rivera Garza has constructed an exquisite homage to the Mexican writer Amparo Davila, echoing her themes of reality, sanity, and sexual identity in an eerie and mildly dystopian setting. Davila herself has all but disappeared from the canon; this tale rescues her alongwith a faithful legion of impostors called the Emissaries. Rivera Garza's novel is a challenging and satisfying literary experience. Familiarity with Mexico will enrich the reading experience but is not a prerequisite.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)