Good and Evil and Other Stories - Softcover

Schweblin, Samanta

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593689054 ISBN 13: 9780593689059

Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

INTERNATIONAL BESTELLER • A haunting, unforgettable collection of tales by Samanta Schweblin, winner of the 2022 National Book Award for Translated Literature and three-time Booker Prize finalist.

“Nobody understands the balance of light and darkness of the human mind as well as Samanta Schweblin. She is a master of the edge, of the contour, the suggestion. The most brilliant writer of short stories writing today, she now delivers her most haunting, fierce and provocative book.”—Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children Archive

"Schweblin creates characters whose lifelines reach some of the most extraordinary questions ever articulated in our literature." —Karen Russell, author of The Antidote and Swamplandia!

“In Samanta Schweblin’s hands a single story becomes a theory of just about everything. You can hear all the atoms of the universe bouncing around. Remarkably taut, clear, precise, and yet capable of capturing the extent of our human messiness, these stories are perfect for the times we dwell inside.” —Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin


The characters of Good and Evil find themselves at a point of no return, dazzled by the glare of impending tragedy. Vulnerable and profoundly human, they become trapped in the instant in which the uncanny has lurched into their lives. Some are transformed, some are isolated, others waver between guilt or tenderness. All of them are driven by uncertainty.

Schweblin’s prose uses tension and truth to construct a literary universe in which the monsters of everyday life come so close to us that we can almost feel their breath. Her writing provokes awe and disquiet, a state of alarm that at the same time transports us to a hypnotic world as recognizable as it is strange.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

SAMANTA SCHWEBLIN won the 2022 National Book Award for Translated Literature for her story collection Seven Empty Houses. Her debut novel, Fever Dream, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, and her novel Little Eyes and story collection Mouthful of Birds have been longlisted for the same prize. Her books have been translated into more than forty languages, and her stories have appeared in English in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, Harper’s Magazine, and elsewhere. Originally from Buenos Aires, Schweblin lives in Berlin.

MEGAN MCDOWELL is the recipient of a 2020 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has been short- or longlisted four times for the International Booker Prize. She lives in Santiago, Chile.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Welcome to the Club

I jump into the water from the end of the pier and sink down, holding my nose. After the initial impact I open my eyes, surrendering to the fall as it grows softer, and to the new colors all around me, denser and more iridescent. I descend, holding my breath.

Maybe a minute passes. Finally, slowly, my feet touch the mossy ground, like I’m an astronaut landing on the moon. I let go of my nose and lower my arms, and my body tenses up. A contraction comes from my lungs, a spasm, and I wait a little longer. I touch the rocks tied to my waist; the knot can always be untied. Perhaps to keep from changing my mind, I inhale. I fill my chest with water and a new, hard cold hits my ribs. I want this to happen painlessly. A dozen bubbles escape from my mouth and nose and rise upward. Another spasm suddenly wracks me and I’m afraid of what might happen now. I let out my remaining air. I’m struck by the liquid feeling where there was always air before, but above all I’m struck by how lucid I feel. How calm. I look at my hands, larger and whiter than they were above-­water, and wonder how long it will take to lose consciousness. Algae, schools of silvery eyes, plankton floating like glitter. My body feels loose, and there’s an extraordinary sensation from the contact with warm currents, cool ones, warm again. In the distance, the lake floor grows murky. How much time has passed? Three minutes, five—­it’s something I no longer know how to calculate. I was sure this would happen faster.

I touch the rocks, feeling for the knot. I’m not changing my mind; at this point, what’s done is done. It’s curiosity. I untie the rope and the rocks fall away. Their impact causes an earthquake near my feet, which slowly lift off the ground. I stay there, sort of floating, unsure what to do. And it’s then, at that moment, when I remember thinking, What if this is it? To float and wonder for the rest of eternity: the first real fear I had that day. To be unable to move forward or backward, ever again, in any direction.

I curl up, kick against the ground to push upward. What was it that went wrong? I’m trying to understand. For a moment ascending seems easy, but after a few feet my body stops, comfortable in its levitation. It takes a while to return, to finally reach the more crystalline warmth of the surface. Will I breathe again when I emerge from the water? I wonder if anyone is looking for me, and I fear a scene. My arms take a few strokes, my head finally leaves the water, and I feel the relief of cold air on my wet face.

The rocky shore is as empty as ever, and I paddle over to the log ladder and climb up onto the pier. I retch, leaning over the deck, expecting to throw up all the water, but nothing happens. The hot wood immediately absorbs the drops falling from my chin. I try to stand but my body is weak and lax, so I wait a moment and try again. Across the garden, the sun bounces off the house’s windows and stings my eyes. I wring out my hair, try to do the same with the front of my shirt, the cuffs of my pants, and walk to the start end of the pier. My sandals are still in the grass, right where I left them. I slip them on and struggle up the embankment to cross the garden uphill.

I remember how I reach the house. I look at myself in the back door, my wet clothes stuck to my body, my hand approaching to slide open the glass that squeaked on the runner, the frame that crosses in front of my eyes and carries off my reflection, and past it the living room, the dining room table with the remains of breakfast still uncleared. I lean against the doorway and, with a final effort, cross the threshold.

Inside, everything is calm. The hydrangeas I cut in the morning are undisturbed in the two kitchen vases. I pick up the letters I’d left propped against the vases, one I wrote for him and one for the girls. I’m not sure whether picking up those letters is a good decision. I’m not even sure if taking them from this table means taking them from the same table where I left them a while ago. I’m not sure of anything, not then and not now, but the clock is already showing twelve twenty, so I go up to the bedroom, put the letters in the nightstand drawer, take off my wet clothes and put on dry ones, and go back down to make lunch.

They pull up honking the horn and the girls roll into the house like a whirlwind. They’re carrying a big cage with a rabbit in it.

“We have to take care of it until Thursday,” my husband says. “One week per family.”

I’m beating eggs. It takes an enormous effort, but I’m trembling and I trust the action will hide my state. The girls wrap their arms around my waist, and I have to lift the bowl higher so I can see their faces.

“His name is Blimp.”

“Yeah! Blimp.”

Their voices echo in my head. The older one presses her nose into my stomach and inhales deeply.

“Mommy, you smell bad.”

The younger one copies her.

“You do! Like dirty mud.”

“All right,” I tell them, “let’s eat.”

I remember how afraid I am to stop beating the eggs. But I stop and nothing happens, no one looks at me. My older daughter pushes the cage against the wall and frees the rabbit. Her father hurries to close the sliding glass door. When he comes back he summons us with three claps of his hands.

“Starting now, we keep all the doors closed,” he says.

I start the fifth omelet in the skillet and serve the ones that are ready. My husband knows he’s in charge of the one that’s still on the burner because he’s the only one who eats two. So we sit down at the table, and the girls’ silence as they take the first bites helps me finally feel calm, at least for a few seconds.

Everything is in order, I tell myself. Easy now.

I sit watching the rabbit as, without any real caution or circumspection, it crosses the dining room to its dish of water on the floor. If Blimp is an expert traveler in new lands, I am this woman anchored always in the same place. Blimp comes over and sniffs at my feet. His nose tickles, and just to be on the safe side I grab on to the edge of the table.

“His name’s Blimp because he’s fat.”

“Nuh-­uh, that’s not why.”

“Yeah it is, the teacher said so.”

The girls sword fight with their forks for a moment and then go on eating. My husband gets up for the last omelet, and on the way there he’s already making a phone call.

Everything is in order, I tell myself, and the pleasure from the tickling surprises me.

“Mommy, are you happy?”

With her silverware held aloft, my youngest waits eagerly for my answer. Suddenly she jumps down from her chair and runs around the table without ever lowering her knife and fork.

“Blimpy! Blimpy! Mommy’s happy!”

“But eating would be too much to ask, huh?” he says when he comes back with his second omelet, noticing the untouched food on my plate.

My oldest watches and listens. The worst part is whatever it is that she’s learning from us.

Lunch ends and my family disappears up the stairs. I like this house because of its porous ability to absorb us all into its rooms. In the living room, the cage has been left open and empty, and I’m comforted by the thought of the girls playing with Blimp, entertained in my absence. It’s like hearing the washing machine or the microwave—­I relax because, even if I can’t take action myself, something practical is still getting done.

I go back to the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593689054
• ISBN 13: 9780593689059
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 193
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar