A book a day: Tamara Romero: Anchor object

Year of publication: 2022

Valuation: Alright

Anchor objecta self-published anthology by Tamara Romero, contains seven stories. Seven dark, disturbing, perverse and cruel stories; seven stories filled with an exquisitely caustic black humor; seven stories that, despite sharing characters and settings, can be read independently.

I liked them all, but I think they could be polished. Although they have premises with a lot of potential, they don’t make the most of them. Add to that two more pitfalls: the lack of focus on important sections (characterizations, backgrounds…) and the tendency to over-explain. Nor does the need to connect the texts help to round out the whole; a need that sometimes forces the insertion of purely decorative references in them in an unorganic way.

In my opinion, the most successful are “Un sendero eléctrico” and “Aplaudirán cuando me vaya”. Also of note are the Carver-esque “Una buena amiga”, the depraved “Licking a cactus” and “La carcasa”, a gem to which we owe the image on the cover.

On the other hand, I would point out that “Esfinge severa” and “Galactogogos” suffer from a certain predictability. This is especially frustrating in the first one, whose bizarre touch predicted a much more extravagant fiction than the one we finally received.

In summary: Anchor object It is, despite its ups and downs, an interesting volume. Still, I feel that something is missing. Perhaps it would have benefited from a more rigorous style review; perhaps the figure of an editor would have helped to reorient it where necessary. In any case, the literary sensibility it exudes is so similar to my own that I cannot help but recommend it.