Her new friend wears a gold bikini and comes complete with a crazy story concerning her son David, who was saved from a fatal illness six years earlier at a huge cost to Carla, never mind anyone else who comes into contact with him.Īlready hailed as one of the most exciting Spanish-language writers currently at work, Argentinean Samanta Schweblin shows little mercy for either her characters or her readers in this sophisticated and darkly theatrical debut novel consisting of a death-bed dialogue between Amanda and her demon, David, the rescued child who in having his soul removed from a dying body, appears to have become a modern day variation of Milton's Lucifer.

Yet she does venture forth and before she knows it, is attempting to teach the fraught and glamorous Carla to drive. Given her wariness Amanda seems fundamentally ill-suited to heading off alone with her child for a holiday in the scorching countryside, while her husband remains working in the city. All is well, reasons Amanda, as long as Nina’s activities are contained within that area most accurately described as an arm’s reach – no further.

Little Nina is happy, singing as she runs around a well, apparently unaware of her mother’s zealous approach to personal safety. Every situation is gauged by an invisible cordon to which she refers as “the rescue distance”, Amanda’s reflex response to any situation. Motherhood appears to have transformed Amanda into a nervous wreck, fearful of the potential dangers threatening her child.

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