...brief, brilliantly written, and kissed by a sense of the absurd ... a classic slacker novel, a shaggy-dog story about breaking free from the tedium of daily life and finding some sort of aim if not meaning ... For all Saldaña París' sharp wit, Among Strange Victims is about waking up to the world's brighter possibilities.
...luidly brought into English through the polished and effortless-feeling translation of the talented Christina MacSweeney ... [a] darkly humorous and thoughtful novel ... It was especially refreshing to me that Saldaña París depicted adult male characters actually questioning their fascination with and attraction to adolescent girls, which happens too little in life, and probably even less in literature. Among Strange Victims could easily have ended on a more swaggery male-fantasy-gratifying note, and it wouldn't have been surprising. That it is surprising and exciting that he avoids this is one of the great disappointments of the world, but it is also to Saldaña París's credit as an observer of that world.
With little plot or dialogue, this farcical novel about inertia sustains momentum by the wit of its quirky Rube Goldberg prose ... But the scatological humor gets old, and some sentences are maddeningly abstruse ... Spoofing misogynists should be a double negative turned positive, but it doesn’t feel that way.
While there’s definitely something of a plot happening in Among Strange Victims, much of the novel’s charm comes from its ability to elude convention. For all of its intentional progression in fits and starts, eventually Rodrigo’s narrative finds a decidedly peculiar direction, ending on a note that’s at once transcendent, melancholy, juvenile and mysterious. Although its stylized narrative can be an acquired taste, Among Strange Victims is deceptively affecting.
Clearly this is an ambitious fictional project. But Saldaña París is most convincing when he writes about the interiority of the mind, when he allows for first person narration, than when he writes at a distance, seeing these characters’ worlds in third person. The 'I' of Rodrigo proves amusing in his ennui, a decent man stuck in his own mind. The third person narrated sections require more of a balance in exposition, action, interiority, and analysis.
To describe the plot of Among Strange Victims is to do a disservice to Saldaña París, as few can bring the mundane life (and not-so-mundane musings) of protagonist Rodrigo Saldívar to such humorous and engaging levels ... Saldaña París eases readers into suspending disbelief through his wonderfully sharp, thoughtful prose.
