Mariana Enriquez is an author who doesn’t hold back when it comes to confronting the nightmarish to tell a story that resembles lived experiences and history. The junta disappearing people, the perspective-obliterating charisma of the cult, the powerful exploiting the vulnerable–these are themes we’re familiar with and themes that permeate Enriquez’s horror novel. Moving in nonlinear fashion through time, the story mainly follows the Peterson family, father and husband Juan, mother and wife Rosario, and son Gaspar. The Petersons are tied to a powerful occult society in Argentina, and we meet Juan and Gaspar on the run.

The details of the family’s ties to this occult group, how Juan ended up a single father, and what role Gaspar plays in the society’s future come to light as the story unfolds. These are complex characters with flaws, some unforgivable and some deeply human, but Gaspar, who we follow from a childhood of abuse and neglect to adulthood, is the character I clung to. He is an innocent cast into a deadly and disorienting game, made to riddle over the circumstances of a turbulent life designed by his father and the impact his life’s mysteries have on him and his loved ones. He is exposed and subjected to brutality and loss again and again. A sense of hopelessness and inevitable tragedy hangs heavy around many of the characters in this story, but Gaspar’s is the thread that tethers the reader to a motivating path through horror after horror incited by a destructive occult terror that existed long before him and that threatens to exist eternally.

Enriquez deftly weaves nuance into one of the most gripping and gut-wrenching horror tales I’ve read. I recommend taking comfort in a lighthearted book after reading this one.