Though the setting may be Argentina, the setup for Selva Almada’s latest novel feels as though it could be plucked from the pages of revered Southern author Flannery O’Connor. But while Almada shares some of O’Connor’s subject matter and spiritual concerns, this is largely where their similarities end. O’Connor’s stories are well known for their frequently doom-laden endings –– the personal violence building to almost apocalyptic proportions in the lives of her characters. Almada tends to take a gentler and more introspective tract ... The climax feels appropriately Biblical...In the grim, often fatalistic world of Flannery O’Connor, this violent confrontation would have likely led to an irrevocable tragedy. But here there is a path forward for these characters, one in which they might learn to let things go and develop as individuals. Alamada’s nuanced approach leaves room to explore her characters’ pasts in some detail, but, crucially, these individuals –– even the Reverend Pearson –– are not defined by their mistakes ... Almada’s novel offers but a brief glimpse of a moment in their journey, but it is one she renders with great and deliberate meaning.

Drawing language from each character’s worldview, and interspersing short sermons, Almada weaves together a quick and tightly told novel that includes smart glimpses into the past, which reveal odd parallels among the four and force each to question the roles of fate, providence, and agency in his or her life. This quick read capturing the soul of rural South America, a place of longstanding truths and pivotal conversions, is Almada’s debut novel and her first work to be translated into English. She’s been billed as a 'promising voice' in Latin American literature, and this tale delivers readily on that promise.

... so tightly framed, the story of a single day in four lives. But the book’s power goes beyond that. There is something as hypnotic and inexorable as weather happening here: you know the storm is coming, and you can’t look away, and you want to know how different things will look once it passes. But maybe they won’t look different. One of the tensions in this book is between certainty and its opposite, which could be doubt but could also be a kind of openness that sets you free—if freedom of any sort is possible—from what you’ve built around yourself.

Perhaps most powerful in the book is Almada’s focus on detail—she skillfully renders the story of a day in brief chapters that reveal the thoughts and fleeting encounters of characters, who are largely living inside themselves, throughout the course of the story ... in incorporating the mundane details of life, Almada renders a realism that is almost tragic. Because her characters engage in relatively guarded conversations with each other, memory and the unsaid are the most compelling and haunting elements of this book ... The story ends in a way reminiscent of Flannery O’Connor’s work: readers are left to unearth the mystery of what has happened, what is left in the wake of the storm ... Though readers may leave this story with more questions than answers, Almada’s aim is not to wrap up loose ends but rather to make clear that the loose ends are what make this story important.

... a slender tale redolent of Flannery O’Connor—and, at some turns, Rod Serling ... Almada’s story, fueled by alcohol, religious symbolism, and doubt, feels a touch incomplete; she might have given a little more space to the things that make each character tick. Still, the story packs a punch in its portraits of a man who exalts heaven and another who protests, 'I don’t have time for that stuff' while confused youngsters watch and wait ... A welcome new voice in Latin American storytelling.

The drama of this refreshingly unpredictable debut, set in the author’s native Argentina, smolders like a lit fuse waiting to touch off its well-orchestrated events ... All of the characters have rich, multidimensional personalities that engage the reader’s sympathy—even Pearson, whose arrogant swagger is counterbalanced by the sincerity of his faith. The characters’ thoughtful discussion of their beliefs—and the potential for both violence and grace that overshadows their interactions—results in a stimulating, heady story.