In a well-blended cocktail of one of my favorite writers, Ottessa Moshfegh, and a few of her contemporaries Claudia Dey, Claire Van Den Berg, Valeria Luiselli, plus the no-f***s-given nature of Bret Easton Ellis— Rita Indiana has created a niche all her own. I bow down to her feet, well below her brilliant mind which came up with the most bizarre tale I’ve yet read.

At the core Acilde’s heartbreaking past overshadows an uncertain future in the post-apocalyptic landscape that has a grip on the island, the Caribbean and the world, and the surprise jumps through time drive the story to its certain oblivion. As the story alternately focused on Acilde, art dealer Giorgio and his artist prodigies, one of them the struggling Argenis, and a group of old world buccaneers, I read the 132 pages in fits and stops, gladly taking in only 5-10 pages at a time as the reveals lashed out from the page and I stared on in wonder.

I’m simply floored. If Indiana has another translated novel available, I must find it. Her style is so unique that I’ll remember it always, and hope to attain an iota of that same talent in my own work.