Book review: She-Devil in the Mirror
Laura Rivera gets a phone call. Her friend, Olga María, whom she had been with earlier in the day, has been shot dead in front of her two daughters. Laura says that Olga, 30 years old and the owner of an upscale boutique, had no enemies. Well, there’re still lots of pages ahead, so we’ll see about that.
Horacio Castellanos Moya, born in Honduras but raised in El Salvador, is the author of several novels, including Senselessness, also reviewed in this newspaper. Quite a bit is made of the author’s political travails, and it certainly seems to enter his novels by way of the back door, in that it comes quietly into the room and sits in the shadows or in the corner, its presence rarely overt but always covert.
As I was saying, Laura tells us – or rather she tells someone who remains vague and unnamed – that Olga had no enemies. But Olga wasn’t the prim, dutiful housewife and mother she appears to be early on. Laura reveals that Olga had an affair with “Julio Iglesias,” her husband’s partner at the agency where he works, an affair with the photographer José Carlos, and also a tryst with a somewhat dubious politician named Yuca.
In part, the book reads like a chatty confessional, almost in girlfriend-speak. It’s an interesting approach, because Laura’s talky manner is kind of a façade through which cracks begin to show. For example, we learn that Laura’s been the go-between for many of her friend’s affairs, and that she’s often slept with the same men that Olga has.
In other words, it doesn’t take long to realize that Laura is a spoiled little rich girl with double standards, whose prejudices fly out like loose ends, but I think that her increasing level of paranoia emerges because she starts to realize, subconsciously at least, that violence can come to the privileged few and that the upper classes or the well-to-do are not immune to it. She also seems to learn new facts about her friend, and this apparently rattles her: “I can’t figure Olga María out at all. I thought I knew her, but now I realize she had many personalities.” My guess is that she’s saying this about herself as well.
Laura finally tells the unknown recipient of this narrative that even she, Laura, may be contacted for questioning by the private eye Pepe Pindonga, who was hired by Olga’s sister, Diana: “I can’t trust anyone anymore.”
At the end, we have an unreliable narrator who has come apart at the seams. That means we have shards to reassemble and so the novel seems to beg a second reading. There’s certainly plenty here to ponder, including the very title, The She-Devil in the Mirror. And who exactly is it hiding in or gazing out from the looking glass?
Horacio Castellanos Moya is a pleasure to read and the translation is always smooth. But start with Senselessness, which I think is more gripping, more memorable, and a fine introduction to a skilled, insightful author from whom we haven’t heard the last. ER