Marina Yuszczuk: Exploring Fear and Immortality in Thirst

Yuszczuk’s blending of traditional vampiric imagery with the Buenos Aires setting was masterful and you really got a sense of the vampire story as a global story, which is unfortunately rare.

Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk (translated by Heather Cleary), A Horror Book Review by Natalie Wall

Thirst is a novel of two halves. The first set in the nineteenth century following a vampire who arrives from Europe to the coast of Buenos Aires on the run from the Church. We follow how she must adapt and attempt to live in this new environment. The second, in present-day Buenos Aires a woman grapples with her mother’s terminal illness and her own relationship with mortality, motherhood, and desire. Yuszczuk navigates themes of fear, loneliness, and the allure of immortality, and as the two women’s lives intertwine.

Personally speaking, the first half of the novel worked much better.

The streets of nineteenth-century Buenos Aires thrum with transformation, chaos, and disease – a perfect gothic setting. This part of the book is fast-paced and violent. There is an animalistic nature to the unnamed vampire protagonist that contemporary vampire stories often stray away from. The only thing that fuels her is her insatiable thirst for blood, no thought to anything else as she seduces her victims. The experience of staying the same in a modernising city, of keeping yourself hidden when the powers and efficacy of the police are growing were very interesting to explore, especially alongside questions of class and gender when a lone woman could be a person of suspicion. 

As disease and death become less prevalent, the vampire sees that her secrecy is going to be threatened once more and turns towards the solitude of the cemetery. Marina Yuszczuk’s blending of traditional vampiric imagery with the Buenos Aires setting was masterful and you really got a sense of the vampire story as a global story, which is unfortunately rare.

As mentioned, the second half of the novel takes place in modern day Buenos Aires.

And we follow a woman dealing with the grief of her mother’s terminal illness as she takes care of her young son. The death and rebirth inherent in vampire lore blended well with the concerns of this modern section. Death is a major theme here and the story feels a lot slower, told in diary entries spanning a few months. The difference between the two halves is quite stark and I have a feeling that readers will end up vastly preferring one half to the other. While it was clear how the stories could weave together, when the moment came it was rather abrupt and its climax perhaps not fully believable because of its sudden appearance. This latter half is still a moving portrayal of grief and sapphic desire from a skilful writer but, to me, felt like somewhat of a different novel. 

This is Marina Yuszczuk’s first book that has been translated into English and while it was not a perfect novel for me, I will certainly be interested to see what comes next.

Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk (translated by Heather Cleary)

Across two different time periods, two women confront fear, loneliness, mortality, and a haunting yearning that will not let them rest. A breakout, genre-blurring novel from one of the most exciting new voices of Latin America’s feminist Gothic.

In the nineteenth century, a vampire arrives from Europe to the coast of Buenos Aires, on the run from the Church. She must adapt, intermingle with humans, and, most importantly, be discreet.

In present-day Buenos Aires, a woman finds herself at an impasse as she grapples with her mother’s terminal illness and her own relationship with motherhood. When she first encounters the vampire in a cemetery, something ignites within the two women — and they cross a threshold from which there’s no turning back.

With echoes of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and written in the vein of feminist Gothic writers like Shirley Jackson, Daphne du Maurier, and Carmen Maria Machado, Thirst plays with the boundaries of genre while exploring the limits of female agency, the consuming power of desire, and the fragile vitality of even the most immortal of creatures.

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