PositiveThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)The novel itself is a witch’s brew, as harsh as possible by design. The ultra-long sentences and strict no-paragraphs policy mean that it has to be downed, more or less, in one shot ... The translation’s predominant use of British slang – and especially of British profanity – is questionable. Hurricane Season is an infrarealist protest novel about Mexico, with its men in pickups, its secret society of narcos and corrupt police, \'those fuckers\' who are \'basically the same thing\'. The vernacular of even the most hardbitten British pub probably carries too weak a charge for this reality ... Otherwise, Hughes elegantly brings out Melchor’s cruel humour, her textured depiction of backland squalor and flashes of hardcore poetry – along with the novel’s primary effect, which is that of a kind of sensory bludgeoning.
