El Celo by Sabina Urraca

The writing of this book is frenetic, visceral and full of detail that is sometimes luscious and other times absolutely disgusting. It took me a while to finish this book because its themes – societal misogyny, sexism, abuse. It follows a female character – ‘The Human’ – who finds a female dog in the streets of Madrid and becomes her owner almost against her will. Taking care of another creature becomes a mammoth task, but The Human, who can barely take of herself as it is, is willing. What she’s not prepared for is her dog in heat – which comes with its own set of complications and pressures for her to handle this wild side of her animal.

As the book advances – often mixing different timelines, The Human as a child growing up in Tenerife, and also as a young woman trying to make life work in Madrid – a few things are revealed. First, that The Human is addicted to anti-anxiety pills she takes to numb a traumatic experience. Her doctor recognises her as a someone who’s suffered from the abuse of an ex-partner so he sends her to group therapy where she meets other women that are nothing like her (they are much older, much younger, they come from complete different places and classes) but that can understand her experience of being hurt by someone they love. The Human bonds with one of the members of this group – Mecha (is interesting to see that other characters are given actual names) – who becomes a friend, a bad influence, and a saviour.

I really enjoyed this story and thought the writing (in Spanish) was really good. It was an uncomfortable, claustrophobic read – which makes sense, considering the narrator is constantly surrounded by many ghosts, the ghost of her grandmother, who she adored when she was a child, but who died of dementia, the ghost of her ex partner, still controlling and frightening her even though they are not together anymore, the ghost of a still birth in the family which was never discussed or acknowledged, the ghost of her grandfather, who dies during the book right after confessing an unsettling truth, the ghost of the career she’s left behind in marketing, the money and the stability, as she tries to become a writer and recover from trauma, the ghosts of all the abusive lovers of the women from her group therapy sessions… and so on.