The She-devil In The Mirror [Paperback]

It appears that Horacio Castellanos Moya ("HCM") is assuming, at least in this country, Roberto Bolano's position as the leading fictional portrayer of the chaos, confusion, and corruption of Latin America. I recently read "Senselessness", the first of HCM's novels to be translated into English, and it was quite powerful and memorable. It spurred me to read THE SHE-DEVIL IN THE MIRROR, which, along with yet another of his novels ("Dance with Snakes"), was released in English translation only a few weeks ago.

SHE-DEVIL does not have the visceral impact of "Senselessness", but it too is a memorable work and an accomplished one, especially from the standpoint of narrative technique. Written in 2000, it depicts life in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, after the civil war (which ended in 1992), as experienced and recounted by the first-person narrator Laura Rivera, a 30-year-old divorced woman of privilege and wealth (she has driven only BMWs since she was 18). At the beginning of the novel, Laura's best friend Olga Maria has just been murdered. As the novel progresses, Laura learns more and more about Olga Maria and various men (all friends of Laura's as well) with whom she interacted, and Laura's working hypothesis of why Olga Maria was murdered and who was responsible keeps changing, somewhat like a kaleidoscope, until it shatters. Laura's continuing attempt to understand the murder and integrate into her hypothesis new pieces of information makes for an interesting variant of the detective story genre. As the tale unfolds, however, it becomes increasingly obvious that Laura is an archetype of the unreliable narrator. Still, the story she tells, if uncertain in its details, is a crystal-clear portrayal of the pervasive atmosphere of corruption and shallowness among the upper class and political powers that be in El Salvador. (And, surely, one message of SHE-DEVIL is that given that pervasive atmosphere there is no possibility of ever unraveling the "truth" about what happened.)

As equally intriguing as the story itself is the way HCM tells it through Laura Rivera. The novel is comprised of nine chapters, each of which consists of what Laura says -- and ONLY what Laura says -- during extended conversations with a friend or confidante who is never named. (There are no paragraph breaks in any of the nine chapters; nonetheless, the novel is surprisingly easy to read.) The conversations take place over a six-week span in different places and circumstances -- for instance, at the wake, driving to the cemetery, in a restaurant, at the confidante's house, and by telephone. At times, Laura's commentary includes remarks addressed to someone other than her friend (her mother, a waiter, a police dispatcher), but the voice is always that of the incessantly chattering, nattering Laura, who, as the novel progresses, becomes increasingly paranoid and unhinged. (Question: To what extent is it the political and social circumstances of El Salvador that undermine Laura's mental stability?) Laura is vacuous, flighty, bitchy, obsessed with her body and sex, and thoroughly unlikable, yet one stays glued to her story.

Laura also has no sense of irony and she is not at all self-reflective. What then is the significance of the title? A good question for book clubs. In considering it, one might also reflect on the role of mirrors in "Senselessness", in the last chapter of which, the first-person narrator (who in extreme paranoia has fled a corrupt and brutal Central American country) looks in a mirror, concentrating "on each and every one of my features, on the expression on my face, which suddenly looked different to me, as if he who was there wasn't me, as if that face for an instant were somebody else's. * * * [N]obody likes to look at himself in the mirror and find somebody else." Does that have anything to do with Laura? If so, which is the she-devil -- Laura or her reflection?

I prefer "Senselessness" over SHE-DEVIL. But reading SHE-DEVIL persuades me that Horacio Castellanos Moya is indeed a major author.

I wrote two reviews together. It would take too long to seperate them so you get a "free" review thrown in. I would love to discuss this book with any other readers.

Although Silvio Sirias' "Meet Me under the Ceiba Tree" and Horacio Castellanos Moya's "The She-Devil in the Mirror" are both novels about a woman being murdered and both take place in Central America, that is where their similarities end.
"Ceiba" is the story of a reporter investigating the murder of a lesbian woman, Adela, who would never hurt anyone. Everyone in the small Nicaraguan town seems convinced who committed the crime and they even put two people in jail for it. Although I was convinced these two people, the selfish mother of the victim's lover and the rich man she sold her daughter, Ixelia, to were evil, vile people, I was not convinced they physically committed the crime. The reporter talks to anyone who knows anything about Adela and her young lover, including the local priest who condemns their lifestyle and the judge who only wants justice for the victim and her family.
"She-Devil," on the other hand, is told from the point of view of the murdered victim's "so called" best friend. As the story goes on, it becomes increasingly apparent that the narrator is quite jealous of her friend's life. While Olga Maria had a great husband and two beautiful daughters plus two or three lovers on the side, Laura, the unreliable narrator, is divorced with no children and seems utterly unhappy with her lot in life. Olga Maria owns a boutique while Laura doesn't seem to have any job or even to have had one in the past. Laura seems to have tried to have affairs with the same lovers that her friend slept with, though she claims she was just trying to help out her friend when she visits these lovers. Laura finally loses it when she discovers her friend slept with her lazy, totally un-sexy ex-husband while they were still married. Although it seems she discovers this later, as the narrator is relating all this to a (imaginary?) friend, we see that she is losing her bearings and ends up institutionalized.
I had an on-line discussion with another reader who read into the story less than I did; he took everything at face value, so in the end, it is difficult to say what actually happened. I suspect that my female sensibilities bring a different perspective to the conclusion of the mystery.
Both stories are filled with illicit sex between lovers, friends and even the occasional paid rendezvous, but "Ceiba" takes place in the countryside in Nicaragua, whereas "She-Devil" takes place in San Salvador, the capital. The poor people, barely eeking out a living in their little town, for the most part, are much more accepting of difference than the rich of San Salvador.
Both authors show us how jealousy and can lead people to places that are worse than Hell and that money often is the root of all evil. Sirius really gets us into the mind of his protagonist, not a difficult task considering that he really was a reporter investigating this woman's death. He wrote the story as fiction so he could fill in details that were never discovered.
Castellanos Moya, on the other hand, gets into the mind of an upper class Salvadoran woman filled with jealousy, and longing for a life that gives her some fulfillment, and Castellanos does this very well.
I recommend both of these books to anyone interested in Central America, its people and history, and its diverse cultures.

› Go to Amazon.com to see both reviews  5.0 out of 5 stars