Hurricane Season

by Fernanda Melchor

When a group of children playing near the irrigation canals stumble upon the rotting body of the village witch, La Matosa erupts into a fevered hunt for answers. Rumors spread like wildfire, and every resident— from the taciturn farmer to the gossip‑laden midwife—offers a fragmented, often contradictory version of what happened. Through a cascade of vivid, unrelenting voices, Fernanda Melchor sketches a community where poverty, machismo, superstition and brutal violence are inseparable, each story peeling back another layer of cruelty and fleeting compassion. Melchor’s prose is a relentless torrent, a lyrical onslaught that captures the raw, poisonous soil of a place where myth and murder intertwine. As the investigation deepens, the novel becomes less about solving a crime and more about exposing the hidden humanity in people most would deem irredeemable. The result is a haunting, unforgettable portrait of contemporary Mexico—its demons, its myths, and the stubborn resilience that flickers amid the darkness.