SEPTEMBER 2018 - AudioFile
Shiromi Arserio delivers an emotional narration of a post-WWII story—part mystery, part self-revelatory exploration, and filled with depictions of violence, gender-identity issues, PTSD, and depression. A survivor of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, "H" is involved with an American soldier named Jim whose missing daughter leads them on a quest that spans decades. Written in stark, striking prose, the novel’s dark content is interspersed with brief joyful respites. Arserio’s portrayal of H narrates the highs, lows, and anxiety-riddled musings of a person who is constantly learning how to navigate the present through a lens of personal trauma. A redemptive and emotional listen. A.L. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
06/18/2018
Spanish author Perezagua’s audacious novel, the first of her works to be translated into English, epistolizes an intersex woman’s quest to find her sanity, her sex, and a family to replace the one incinerated by the Americans at Hiroshima. H, a child whose parents chose to see her as a boy even though she identified as a girl, survived Little Boy, the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan. After being adopted by a family in America, she tells of meeting Jim, a veteran searching for Yoro, a girl delivered into his care in the aftermath of the war. Together they travel the world, hunting for the child. When Jim dies, H becomes involved with a professor she calls Irrational Number, but she is so psychologically damaged that their relationship soon ends in a surprising, abrupt manner. She continues the search for Yoro, so bound to the idea of her that she narrates as if pregnant with the girl, though she knows she is not. Following a lead years after she first began searching for Yoro, H travels to Africa, where she divulges a startling confession and is involved in a violent crime. Inventive if often didactic, this ambitious book plunges with courage into the moral morass of a horrific period in history. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
Marina Perezagua is an exciting new voice, one of the best of the new generation of Spanish writers.” — Salman Rushdie
“Inventive...this ambitious book plunges with courage into the moral morass of a horrific period in history.” — Publishers Weekly
“A kaleidoscope of imagination and empathy. The Story of H bursts into life—fast, hot, and explosive like great histories in the making.” — Lila Azam Zanganeh, author of The Enchanter
“The Story of H is a novel of survivors, written with merciless beauty—a dance of death, sex, and love. Marina Perezagua is one of those rare writers who can conjure horror and compassion with a lyricism as defiant as it is terrifying.” — Mariana Enriquez, author of Things We Lost in the Fire
“Rich with symbolism and recurring motifs, the story folds in on itself like origami. . . This thought-provoking novel charting the aching distance between the heart and tongue gives voice to the mutability and resilience of the human spirit.” — Booklist
“...An epic novel . . . Calls to mind Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Salman Rushdie’s The Golden House.” — Vanity Fair
"Masterfully written...The Story of H is simultaneously a joyful and perceptive recollection of a long and complicated life. Perezagua set out to write a novel that explored the difficulties and triumphs of humanity, and in doing so she wote something equal parts disturbing, visceral, and enchanting." — ZYZZYVA
Salman Rushdie
Marina Perezagua is an exciting new voice, one of the best of the new generation of Spanish writers.
Booklist
Rich with symbolism and recurring motifs, the story folds in on itself like origami. . . This thought-provoking novel charting the aching distance between the heart and tongue gives voice to the mutability and resilience of the human spirit.
Mariana Enriquez
The Story of H is a novel of survivors, written with merciless beauty—a dance of death, sex, and love. Marina Perezagua is one of those rare writers who can conjure horror and compassion with a lyricism as defiant as it is terrifying.”
Vanity Fair
...An epic novel . . . Calls to mind Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Salman Rushdie’s The Golden House.”
Lila Azam Zanganeh
A kaleidoscope of imagination and empathy. The Story of H bursts into life—fast, hot, and explosive like great histories in the making.
ZYZZYVA
"Masterfully written...The Story of H is simultaneously a joyful and perceptive recollection of a long and complicated life. Perezagua set out to write a novel that explored the difficulties and triumphs of humanity, and in doing so she wote something equal parts disturbing, visceral, and enchanting."
Booklist
Rich with symbolism and recurring motifs, the story folds in on itself like origami. . . This thought-provoking novel charting the aching distance between the heart and tongue gives voice to the mutability and resilience of the human spirit.
SEPTEMBER 2018 - AudioFile
Shiromi Arserio delivers an emotional narration of a post-WWII story—part mystery, part self-revelatory exploration, and filled with depictions of violence, gender-identity issues, PTSD, and depression. A survivor of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, "H" is involved with an American soldier named Jim whose missing daughter leads them on a quest that spans decades. Written in stark, striking prose, the novel’s dark content is interspersed with brief joyful respites. Arserio’s portrayal of H narrates the highs, lows, and anxiety-riddled musings of a person who is constantly learning how to navigate the present through a lens of personal trauma. A redemptive and emotional listen. A.L. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2018-06-18
An intersex woman joins an American ex-soldier in a search for his adopted daughter.Perezagua's new novel, her first to appear in English, is so strange it's difficult to begin with a summary. Let's say that it's a blend of fiction and essay, and though it doesn't really qualify as magical realism, it certainly isn't just realism either. The book is narrated by H, an intersex woman who'd been a schoolboy in Hiroshima when the bomb fell. Along with everything else, she left her old identity behind. Now she's with Jim, an American ex-soldier formerly stationed in Hiroshima. Jim is desperately searching for Yoro, the Japanese daughter he adopted after the war. Yoro disappeared on him, or was taken from him; in any case, H joins him in his search. H narrates their story in a circular, roundabout way, full of repetitions and asides—though it isn't always clear where the asides end and the main story begins. Early on, H admits to a murder of some sort, circumstances unclear. She directs her story to an otherwise unnamed "sir," an authority apparently in hot pursuit. It wouldn't be fair to say that none of this is realistic—it isn't meant to be realistic. But it isn't believable, either, not even in its own weird world. H's digressions become tiresome. Her sometimes-sanctimonious tone does, too. The novel apparently grew out of a short story. One gets the impression it would have been more successful shrunk down to its original size.With a narrative style that quickly grows tiresome, this experimental novel never quite reaches emotional depth.
