I read my first paragraphs of The Rooftop by Uruguayan author Fernanda Trías, translated by Annie McDermott, in the small cobblestoned town of Colonia de Sacramento, a day trip away from Buenos Aires, and then I read the rest of it while on an atrociously delayed ferry and egregiously long customs line to get back into Argentina. It was a great read to dive into all at once like that, first page to last.
It's a claustrophobic book of very quiet, effective psychological horror. The pregnant narrator has a need to control her family, a certainty of surveillance and persecution, a sureness that if they go outside, they'll be hurt or known or captured or tricked, and so she keeps her sick father and her young daughter Flor more or less hostage in their apartment, in the environment she can control within her anxiety—but meanwhile she herself escapes often to the roof, a safe space of her own, a quiet place, a high place where she feels safety.
It's a dark book, and effective in portraying this woman's psychosis and the world of the apartment seen through her eyes. There are many things unsaid but hinted at in this book that themselves carry a lot of real social horror, and the writing of Trías really allows the reader to glimpse between the lines at many points. Great stuff, and again—perfect to sit down, read in one big burst, and then shiver a bit and walk away from it for a drink.
Content warnings for fatphobia, violence, death, incest, suicidal ideation, neglect.
