books you may love: Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

I was reading a book recommended by an author whose writings I mostly enjoy.

It was a struggle.

All the tropes were there. An independent, fierce heroine with a murderous past that she doesn't try to hide. A woman who stands her ground when men in uniform try to make her cower. A spree of savage murders in an isolated locale that she is called to investigate.

This is exactly the kind of story I'd have loved to read in my 20s. The 30-something-heroine solving mysteries, fighting the bad guys, restoring justice to this world, would have been a role model to look up to, to aspire to becoming, for my 20-year-old self, the way Nancy Drew was the kind of teenager my ten-year-old self wanted to become when she grew up.

But now these books come across as rather frivolous. Quite shallow, in fact. A fantasy tossed out there for readers to indulge in for a wee while. A form of escapism.

Except, my time is precious enough that I don't look to read for escapism. I love reading stories that inadvertently validate the depth of my feelings as a human being, as a woman, as a mother, as an ordinary person continuing to make her way through this ordinary world.

Which is what Monstrilio by Mexican author, Gerardo Sámano Córdova, did.

It's classified as a literary horror novel, but that's like calling a dog an animal. Doesn't fully describe the being in question.

Monstrilio begins with the death of a 10-year-old boy whose parents are grieving in their own distinct ways. The child's death was imminent — he was born with only one lung, that too underdeveloped, so he wasn't even expected to live for a decade.

Wanting a keepsake of her son, the mother — Magos — cuts out a piece of his lung, the organ that failed him in the end, and carries it with her in a jar when she returns from New York to her mother's home in Mexico.

There, she feeds the lung chicken soup, and a creature comes to life. A creature with fangs and an arm-tail.

She tries to keep it a secret, but of course that unravels as the monster grows bigger and begins to dart about the house.

Whenever one of her loved ones finds out about the monster, they tell her to kill it at first, only to get sucked deeper and deeper into her attempts at raising the creature as though it were her dead son, Santiago, come back to life.

The story unfolds in four chronological parts, each narrated by a different character.

First we hear from Magos, the grieving mother. Then it's Lena, a dear friend of Magos who's also in love with her.

Then we hear from Joseph, Santiago's father, who has now divorced his wife and is moving on with his life in New York but remains a strong presence in the life of their monster-child, M.

Finally, we hear from M, now an adolescent, figuring out dating and sex, all while trying to keep his insatiable primal hunger for raw meat under control.

I kept turning the pages, wanting to find out what happens next. But it is also a poignant tale of grief and madness, of the inevitable sorrows of being a parent, of being a human being, and the infinite ways to cope with this enormous task of being alive and sane in this world.

As always, my words fall way short of explaining how beautiful this story is — which is why I never call these reflections 'reviews', because

(i) who am I to proclaim judgement on how good or bad a work of art is, who am I to assess another's creative expression of their soul?
and
(ii) trying to dissect a story is like trying to name the unnameable Tao. It's the mystery that speaks to us all without needing to be labelled or examined or explained.

So here are some excerpts instead for you to make up your own mind about this amazing story. I have a feeling I'm going to go back and read it all over again.

She wants to learn one last secret from her son. What part of a person's body is inextricably themselves? Not hair, though many people keep lockets of hair. Hair is too public and not a secret. His finger or his toe, these she knows well, how thin and long his fingers are, like her husband's, and how small and pudgy his toes, like hers. His tongue quick and wispy. His heart, a quiet, solitary heart engaged to her and her husband.

It has to be his lung. Her son, Santiago, has only one lung. This is it, this lung, the core of his Santiagoness. She loves and hates this lung, a mystery to her, a tiny lung that carried her son way past his expected life span. She wants to thank it, and also spit on it for not having carried him further. Mainly, she wants to see the lung and hold it.

Excavating one's child isn't a difficult task, if determined.

~ An excerpt from Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

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Once, Santiago told me we couldn't know where electrons existed exactly, that we could only guess, a cloud of probability, and wasn't that fascinating because we were also made of electrons and maybe if he tried hard enough, he could be everywhere and nowhere at the same time, like electrons did? I told him to try. He shut his eyes and held his breath and said he couldn't do it yet. He said he needed to die first and then he would be jumping to another position, jumping, jumping, jumping, never to be reached but always present in a hazy cloud.

~ An excerpt from Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

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"It got scary for a while," he said. "After you left and Uncle came to look after me, I suddenly couldn't feel anything anymore. When my mother died, Uncle absorbed all the grief and accumulated it inside his body so none of it reached me. That's why he's so gnarled and bent at odd angles. After Santiago, I expected to gnarl too. I wanted my grief, but instead I was left with a horrible nothingness, and I got really scared. But then I realized fear was a thing I could feel, and I clung to it. I was afraid of my loneliness. I was afraid I would never have anyone to love again. I blamed you for it. For leaving. I was angry. Furious. And then I had two emotions. Fear and anger. The anger helped me wake up in the mornings and eat and clean the house and wash myself. The anger even distracted me long enough that I would forget my loneliness, and sometimes, in short bursts, I even felt cheerful."

~ An excerpt from Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

Oh, how these lines spoke to me! I know all too well how anger can serve as a useful distraction, especially when I am in the throes of anxiety or helplessness.

How deliciously righteous it feels! As though I'm setting right some grave injustice that had been hurled upon me. And if the people around me are washed up in the lava of my anger, so be it.

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I was tempted to pray for her, but God is a scumbag; he wouldn't answer any prayers of mine. I wished instead, like one wishes on a birthday candle or a star.

~ An excerpt from Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

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The monster stared at me and growled. Magos held it closer and kissed its head.

My mother thought I was a monster and didn't love me because of it. This thing, an actual fucking monster, was loved.

~ An excerpt from Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

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"Monstrilio?"

"I can't keep calling it Lung."

She was right; we don't go around calling people Ovum.

~ An excerpt from Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

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"Isn't this marvellous?" Peter said, gaping all around. One of the things I loved most about him was how he used words like marvellous earnestly, so committed to their meaning that any hint of affect dissipated and the words lingered full and sweet.

~ An excerpt from Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

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"How do you make sure people don't stop liking you?"

"I don't know. I guess you can't be absolutely sure. But I suppose if you like them and are kind to them and don't hurt them, there's no reason why they should stop liking you."

"Not eating them. For example?"

Though M's tone was flat, his eyes glimmered. It was a joke. I laughed. He scratched at his thin stubble of fur, a spot in the shape of a pumpkin on his forehead. M turned back toward the restaurant and walked right through a crowd of tourists like it was his street.

~ An excerpt from Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

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The excerpt below is one I love deeply. Magos does what every mother really wants to do when their child is bullied but often doesn't because of society, rules of civilization, blah, blah, blah ...

Do you remember the zoo, Santiago? You were eight or nine. Mami and Papi took you. Your first time. Zoológico de Chapultepec. Mami's cousin and her children came too. Two were teenagers, and a third was a boy around your age. You saw a hippopotamus and a giraffe. Papi got you ice cream. The older cousins teased the youngest one. Told him they were going to feed him to the wolf. Then they ignored him. They ignored you too. The youngest one waited behind to walk alongside you. You matched his pace. You thought that made you friends. But with everyone else far ahead, he smooshed your ice cream on your chest and ran. Left you dripping. He went right up to his siblings. They laughed. Called you a sissy. Papi ran to you. Kissed your head. Made sure you were okay. You couldn't speak, you were so angry. So angry you worried your lung would conk out, but it didn't. Papi got napkins to clean you up. Mami looked at the broken cone on the floor, snapped right up, and walked over to your cousins. Papi whispered, Magos. He knew what was coming. Mami knocked the youngest kid's cone to the floor. One swoop. The boy froze, then cried. Mami's cousin screamed at her. Mami pretended to have no idea what she was talking about. Mami's cousin screamed at Papi too. Told him his wife was insane. Kids are clumsy, Papi said and smiled like Mami. The cousin looked at you. At your T-shirt drenched in strawberry ice cream. Let's go! She snapped her fingers and dragged her three children out of the zoo. Papi held your hand. Mami held his.

I often steal this memory from you, Santiago. Right before I go to sleep.

~ An excerpt from Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

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I fall asleep on the couch. When I wake up, Mami is sleeping on one side of me, Papi on the other. The couch is not that big, but the three of us fit. Papi's hair falls on my face. It tickles, but I don't brush it away. If I move, our breathing might unsync. And it's easier in unison. Like Mami and Papi are breathing for me. My stomach growls. I put my hands over it. I don't want them to wake up. Not yet. But then Mami's stomach growls too. And Papi's. I laugh and sneak away.

Outside, I light my last cigarette. Very human of me. Très M. I puff out the smoke. Watch it swirl into nothing.

~ An excerpt from Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

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Monstrilio was such a gem of a book. Reading it has given me the gift of acceptance as to how fiercely and deeply I love D, and how I've ceased caring for civil niceties and hypocrisies when it comes to standing by him and supporting and encouraging him.

And I'm deeply grateful to Gerardo Sámano Córdova for normalizing this raw maternal fierceness in this story!