It was a pretty short read and one that had me reading; I couldn’t put it down. The only reason I was able to put it down the first night I started reading, after halfway through, was because I was damn tired and just couldn’t keep my eyes open after midnight.
Amanda and Carla met one another not very many days ago. Amanda is in this small town for vacation with her daughter, and her husband is due any day now. Carla is a local and her husband raises race horses, but there are no more horses in the stables. Amanda and Carla hit it off right away, and then Carla starts to tell her a very strange story.
Amanda is now dying and recalling this story to Carla’s son, David, with some help and coaxing from him here and there, so she may be able to understand what is happening to her. Fever Dream is a very strange book, a book about the feverish recollection of some very strange, eerie almost, events that are borderline paranormal, if you choose to look at it that way.
In some strange way this book reminded me of Kazuo Ishiguro’s debut novel, A Pale View of Hills. Some other reviewer on Goodreads compared this book to those by Jesse Ball and Helen Phillips. I haven’t read any by either of these authors, but now I am tempted.
If you like melancholic, eerie novella, this book is going to be totally up your alley.
Fever Dream
By Samantha Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell
Hardcover. 183 pages. Riverhead Books. January 10, 2017.
Literary Fiction