Something that looks so slight, and yet contains so much within—a physical description of the book but also its themes and characters. It’s hard to describe TENTACLE; Dominican writer Rita Indiana traverses so much territory and experiments with several mechanisms of storytelling and art. I’ll try though: the story flits through time, not only for its main character, Acilde, from a future after a devastating environmental disaster to the years leading up to it, but also from a personal journey in the body they are inhabiting. Their body, told in a mesmerizing passage (I think my mouth was agape), is transformed and a mission bestowed upon them: travel in time, prevent disaster.

The way in which Indiana approaches time travel was new to me, like so much of the way this book works. Indiana mines colonial history, queerness, modern art. It can certainly be confusing at times, but it’s also thought-provoking. Indiana has something here in terms of ideas though the narrative could have used a little more cohesion. I’ve never been one to look for the point A to point B kind of story, though, and I thoroughly loved the sci-fi adventure and visceral attitude of TENTACLE.