Trout Belly Up

October 19, 2020
Guatemalan writer Fuentes’s impressive debut collection chronicles the comings and goings of a struggling farmer, Henrik, and those in his orbit. In the title story, Henrik tries his hand at trout farming, but while he is away, the employee he left in charge starts an affair with a shopkeeper and ignores his duties. “Dive” takes place early in Henrik’s life and features his delinquent brother, Mati, who embarks on a hunt for Mayan ceramics in a lake near Santa Catarina Palopó. “Whisky” picks up with an older Mati, whose dog, Whisky, goes missing during a weekend visit from his young daughter, who splits her time with Mati and her mother. “Ubaldo’s Island” concerns one of Henrik’s employees, Ubaldo, who tells Henrik’s stepson, Andrés, about a group of armed men set on taking Henrik’s land over unpaid debts, and the final story, “Henrik,” follows the farmer’s life with Andrés and Andrés’s mother as he deals with collectors and deep-pocketed neighbors aiming to purchase his farm. Fuentes’s prose is emotionally resonant and smartly constructed, and though the brief story “Terrace” feels undercooked, the collection otherwise successfully blends sharp dialogue, striking images, and consequential action. These satisfying stories are full of surprises.

December 1, 2020
A set of linked stories spotlighting the ironies and precarity of life in rural Guatemala. Fuentes' first book in English is slim but potent, focused on poor farmers and their struggles to get by amid threats from wealthier and better-armed interlopers. Central among them is Don Henrik, a well-traveled plantation owner who's trying to improve his standing: In the opening title story, he starts farming rainbow trout, a project that proves surprisingly challenging for the narrator, a farmhand whose affair distracts him from his task of keeping the fish alive. The metaphors aren't subtle (invasive species, emotional and environmental sustainability, etc.), but Fuentes (via Jones' crisp translation) delivers the story with a Carver-esque bluntness. In "Dive," Henrik recalls his addict brother, Mati, and a foolhardy act of his while snorkeling, which makes for a taut set piece about the way one family member's questionable behavior radiates outward. In the closing story, "Henrik," the title character risks being forced to give up his land, as a group of thugs' gentle suggestions morph into more terrifying high-pressure extortion tactics. The tone in the stories isn't strictly foreboding: "Out of the Blue, Perla" features a cow raised to behave like a dog, including walking on its hind legs, baffling some gunmen; the mood of growing threat is undercut by a note of absurdity. And in the tender, atmospheric "Whisky," Mati is in recovery and raising a family, kept company by a dog whose disappearance has an unexpectedly deep impact. Still, something dark always lurks just around a turn in these stories, and though Fuentes tends to avoid describing violence itself, he harrowingly captures how the threat of it intensifies and deepens. His climaxes are the moments when, as one character puts it, "the wolves take off their sheep's clothing." A smart, controlled debut from a writer who addresses poverty and criminality in a variety of registers.

COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.