Book Review: Swim Home to the Vanished, by Brendan Shay Basham
A story about grief and fish and witches. Magical realism with a Diné flavor.
Harper, 2023, 232 pages
After the death of his brother, a grief-stricken young man seeks refuge and oblivion in a secluded fishing village dominated by a family of brujas in this haunting debut novel, inspired, in part, by the ramifications of Diné history and thought-a mesmerizing, original tale in the tradition of works by Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, and Gabriel García Márquez.
When the river swallowed Kai, Damien’s little brother didn’t die so much as vanish. As the unbearable loss settles deeper into his bones, Damien, a small-town line cook, walks away from everything he has ever known. Driving as far south as his old truck and his legs allow, he lands in a fishing village beyond the reach of his past where he hopes he can finally forget.
But the village has grief of its own. The same day that Damien arrives, a young woman from the community’s most powerful family is being laid to rest. A stranger in town, Damien is the object of gossip and suspicion, ignored by all except the dead girl’s mother, Ana Maria, who offers Damien a room and a job.
Grateful for her kindness, Damien soon begins to fall under Ana Maria's charismatic spell. But how long can he resist the rumors swirling through town suggesting she might have had something to do with her daughter’s death? Or deny his strange kinship with one of Ana Maria's surviving daughters, Marta, who knows too well the grief that follows the loss of a sibling-and who is driven by a fierce need for revenge? Swiftly, Damien finds himself caught in a power struggle between the brujas, a whirlwind battle that threatens to sweep the whole village out to sea.
Resonant with the Diné creation story and the unshakeable weight of the Long Walk-the forced removal of the Navajo from their land-Swim Home to the Vanished explores the human capacity for grief and redemption, and the lasting effects it has on the soul.
Swim Home to the Vanished, by Diné (Navajo) author Brendan Shay Basham, is a literary trip, and like lots of literary novels, it's more about the experience than the story. The description of the book indicates it is meant to be packed with allusions about the Diné creation story and the hardships of the Navajo people, but not being more than passingly familiar with Navajo myths and history, I mostly didn't get the references.
Damien is a line cook whose brother died (or disappeared, it's unintentionally unclear). Wallowing in grief, Damien packs up his things and goes on a walk. Along the way, he starts growing gills. This is just one of those things that happens, because this book is "magical realism."
Damien arrives at a small fishing village. The day he arrives, there is a funeral for a woman who died recently. The village is run by a family of brujahs (witches). Ana Maria is the brujah matriarch, whose daughter is the woman who died. She hires Damien to be a cook at the bar/restaurant she runs. Damien comes to realize there is a power struggle going on between Ana Maria and her children, while he himself is a figure of pity and suspicion to the local villagers, who fear the brujah. Everyone is actually some sort of sea creature, and Damien is slowly turning into a fish, while he struggles with his grief and mostly mopes around thinking about his childhood with his deceased/missing brother in elegiac internal monologues.
This book was full of poetic and emotional prose, but it wasn't for me. Because it is "magical realism" it gets compared to the usual suspects (Murakami, Márquez, etc.) but it's not like anything written by any of those authors. It's a sort of meandering collection of ganja-thoughts strung together in a loosely connected metaphorical narrative that went over my head. I could close my eyes and immerse myself in the imagery, but as a reading experience it just wasn't my thing. Swim Home to the Vanished is one of those books I can appreciate for its craft without really enjoying it.
My complete list of book reviews.
Harper, 2023, 232 pages
After the death of his brother, a grief-stricken young man seeks refuge and oblivion in a secluded fishing village dominated by a family of brujas in this haunting debut novel, inspired, in part, by the ramifications of Diné history and thought-a mesmerizing, original tale in the tradition of works by Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, and Gabriel García Márquez.
When the river swallowed Kai, Damien’s little brother didn’t die so much as vanish. As the unbearable loss settles deeper into his bones, Damien, a small-town line cook, walks away from everything he has ever known. Driving as far south as his old truck and his legs allow, he lands in a fishing village beyond the reach of his past where he hopes he can finally forget.
But the village has grief of its own. The same day that Damien arrives, a young woman from the community’s most powerful family is being laid to rest. A stranger in town, Damien is the object of gossip and suspicion, ignored by all except the dead girl’s mother, Ana Maria, who offers Damien a room and a job.
Grateful for her kindness, Damien soon begins to fall under Ana Maria's charismatic spell. But how long can he resist the rumors swirling through town suggesting she might have had something to do with her daughter’s death? Or deny his strange kinship with one of Ana Maria's surviving daughters, Marta, who knows too well the grief that follows the loss of a sibling-and who is driven by a fierce need for revenge? Swiftly, Damien finds himself caught in a power struggle between the brujas, a whirlwind battle that threatens to sweep the whole village out to sea.
Resonant with the Diné creation story and the unshakeable weight of the Long Walk-the forced removal of the Navajo from their land-Swim Home to the Vanished explores the human capacity for grief and redemption, and the lasting effects it has on the soul.
Swim Home to the Vanished, by Diné (Navajo) author Brendan Shay Basham, is a literary trip, and like lots of literary novels, it's more about the experience than the story. The description of the book indicates it is meant to be packed with allusions about the Diné creation story and the hardships of the Navajo people, but not being more than passingly familiar with Navajo myths and history, I mostly didn't get the references.
Damien is a line cook whose brother died (or disappeared, it's unintentionally unclear). Wallowing in grief, Damien packs up his things and goes on a walk. Along the way, he starts growing gills. This is just one of those things that happens, because this book is "magical realism."
Damien arrives at a small fishing village. The day he arrives, there is a funeral for a woman who died recently. The village is run by a family of brujahs (witches). Ana Maria is the brujah matriarch, whose daughter is the woman who died. She hires Damien to be a cook at the bar/restaurant she runs. Damien comes to realize there is a power struggle going on between Ana Maria and her children, while he himself is a figure of pity and suspicion to the local villagers, who fear the brujah. Everyone is actually some sort of sea creature, and Damien is slowly turning into a fish, while he struggles with his grief and mostly mopes around thinking about his childhood with his deceased/missing brother in elegiac internal monologues.
This book was full of poetic and emotional prose, but it wasn't for me. Because it is "magical realism" it gets compared to the usual suspects (Murakami, Márquez, etc.) but it's not like anything written by any of those authors. It's a sort of meandering collection of ganja-thoughts strung together in a loosely connected metaphorical narrative that went over my head. I could close my eyes and immerse myself in the imagery, but as a reading experience it just wasn't my thing. Swim Home to the Vanished is one of those books I can appreciate for its craft without really enjoying it.
My complete list of book reviews.