Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, ‘Fever Dream’ by Samanta Schweblin tells the story of Amanda, a woman who is critically ill in a rural Argentinian hospital, where David is trying to get her to remember the events which led her there. She recalls encounters with her daughter Nina and David’s mother Carla who once told her how David’s soul was split in two in order to save him after he was poisoned. However, David is not quite the same afterwards, and neither are Amanda and Nina.

‘Fever Dream’ is very short and can easily be read in under two hours which is just as well because, unusually for me, I have had to read it twice in order to review it. I don’t think I absorbed it properly the first time round but then I’m still not entirely sure I did the second time either. The structure broadly consists of two overlapping conversations – one in the present between Amanda and David as he urges her to remember specific events, and one in the past as Amanda recalls what happened to her, Carla and Nina. David repeatedly tells Amanda to stop dwelling on what he believes are irrelevant details which increases the sense of urgency and dread. However, Amanda’s deteriorating health and confused memories (if that is indeed what they are) leaves almost everything open to interpretation.

If my description of ‘Fever Dream’ so far sounds a bit weird and incoherent, that’s because it is a pretty weird and incoherent book. While there is an underlying menace throughout, the story is never quite what it seems and as the different strands overlap, the narrative becomes increasingly shapeless with recurring images resembling an inescapable nightmare, which eventually offers some possible clues as to what caused the poisoning. One of the most compelling images Amanda repeatedly refers to is the “rescue distance” between her and Nina by which she means the distance from which a mother can pull her child back to safety away from a dangerous situation. Although ‘Fever Dream’ is difficult to categorise thematically with so little certainty in terms of what is real and what isn’t, paranoia is undoubtedly a key element and Schweblin portrays this motif of all-consuming maternal love very effectively.

Disorientating and profoundly unsettling, ‘Fever Dream’ probably isn’t for everyone but for true originality alone, it really ought to be a contender for the upcoming Man Booker International Prize longlist which I will be shadowing again this year. Many thanks to Oneworld Publications for sending me a review copy via NetGalley.

I received a free copy of Fever Dream from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
This is a stunning piece of writing, incredibly haunting, reflecting its title through its feverish, almost hallucinogenic prose. It is mesmerising and disturbing whilst being quite beautiful as it articulates the mother/child bond and the aching chasm of loss in a poisoned landscape. It is a short novel – I finished it in no time at all – but it packs a punch. The reader’s sense of confusion at the beginning perfectly mirrors the confusion of Amanda, who is dying in a hospital bed and being kept company by a young boy, David, who is trying to get her to understand what has and is happening. It is filled with desperate suspense and all-encompassing maternal love. There is no solid explanation of what has happened at the end of the novel; you may end up nearly as uncertain as you were at the beginning but this is nevertheless a superb book.

Amanda is in her deathbed. Next to her is David, a child who is not hers. Together, they try to understand how they came to be there.

Fever Dream is a short novel of impeccable pacing that intrigues you from the very beginning. An eerie and highly original piece with a subtle but effective ending.

Very much recommended.

(Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy!)

Fever Dream is a difficult book to review. I found it strange but so compelling I had to read it through to see where it would lead. Odd, it most certainly is, and disturbing too. Disturbing in a subtle, taunt way that is well crafted. It casts a spell that is both unusual and troubling.

I cannot honestly say that I liked Fever Dream but it is a book that has stayed with me and revealed its secrets with time and reflection. I'm glad I read it but, as I said before, it is something that leaves a mark on the reader and makes the reader feel unsettled.

This is a weird story, so weird that I struggle to know what it is about. However it is nicely written and translated and despite never knowing quite is going on, it does manage to sustain a tension to keep the reader engaged until the end. Possibly a good one for book clubs as it is so open to interpretation.

Unfortunately this book was not for me but thanks a million for allowing me to read it

Do you ever read two (or more) completely unrelated books that seem – somehow – spiritually identical? This has happened to me recently with Iain Reid's I'm Thinking of Ending Things and Samanta Schweblin's Fever Dream. Both Ending Things and Fever Dream are very short novellas that can easily be read in their entirety in an hour or two. They share a sense of shifting nightmare logic and a horrible compulsive darkness that makes you burn through the pages in search of an answer. Both feel predominantly like horror stories despite the absence of many of the genre's typical hallmarks and the fact that they are not packaged as horror.

Fever Dream opens with a disorientating conversation; I had to read the first page several times. Eventually it becomes apparent that the narrator, Amanda, is lying in a hospital bed and answering the questions put to her, with some urgency, by a boy named David. She is telling a story, or rather recounting things that have happened to her, while David is trying to identify 'the important thing', 'the exact moment when the worms come into being'. What worms? Well, exactly. It doesn't seem likely they are actual worms, but in this aptly-named novella you can never be sure.

A narrative emerges, taking place just a few days earlier. Amanda and her young daughter, Nina, meet David and his mother, Carla, while on holiday. Carla claims there is something wrong with David, and then she, in turn, tells Amanda a story. When David was three, he was poisoned after drinking contaminated water from a stream. Carla took him to 'the green house', where a local woman performed a 'migration': sending David's soul into another's body so he could continue to live. Since then, his body has been inhabited by the spirit of another. So Carla says. What happens to Amanda and Nina after this is what leads to Amanda's hospitalisation and David's demand that they pinpoint 'the exact moment', 'before time runs out'. Though some aspects of the story seem meaningful to Amanda, David dispassionately skips over anything he deems unimportant. Some details are recurring motifs: Carla's gold bikini, Nina's cuddly toy mole. Then there's the matter of the 'rescue distance', Amanda's obsessive idea of how far she can safely be from her daughter in case of an emergency.

It's quite a strange thing to read a story where you fear the ending but feel a desperate need to get to it. Fever Dream made me feel sick, but I can't tell you why. It really is like a nonsensical dream from which you wake with a great sense of dread, as though you've had a terrible nightmare, even though the details weren't particularly horrifying in themselves. I'm really not sure I understood it, and reading other reviews, including those from professional critics, I'm not convinced many other people did either. It teases some dreadful shock but never shows its hand. In the end, that lack of an answer, the fruitless search for understanding, is the real horror.

A mother's love is an area that has been often explored in fiction. Here, author Samantha Schweblin who was born in Buenos Aires dives straight into a very surreal and challenging plot that focuses on transference of motherly love. However it is not transferring love from one child to another but for another child to possess the human form of your own child. There is a small group of central characters keeping the plot focused, with the voice of David as the child leading mother figure Amanda through a growing sense of suspicion and fear. Taut writing and some disturbing effects of the transfiguration don't make for an easy read. It is probably not a book I would have chosen and I am often wary of translated fiction. But "Fever Dream" confounds both my pre- conceptions and I look forward to further works from this talented writer.

The best word I can come up with to describe this book is weird. I'm very confused by it and not convinced I'll ever understand what I just read.

I feel that nothing was explained at all and I have no idea at all why anything happened, I'm not 100% on what actually happened. It's really unusual and I was confused throughout but I was intrigued enough to finish.

I understand how other readers could absolutely love this, but it was just a bit too odd for me.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

What an odd little book.

I dont get it. I wish i did, but i missed something. Maybe thats the point. Aaaarggghh.

A delirious woman on her death bed tells the story of how she got there to a mysterious man sitting beside her, whilst all the while he pushes and prods her along, telling her which bits are important to the story and which arent. The womans daughter is missing, she wants to know where she is. All this is told as one big fever dream. The narrative is a real slog to get into at first. For the first 20 pages or so i had no fucking clue what was going on, then once i got to grips with it i went back and restarted. It made more sense, but, still, no fucking clue.

The novel has a realm of the supernatural about it. I thought i knew where it was headed and i was kind of right. I think.

Anyway these fever dreams throughout, and the womans story are building to something. There is a chilling vibe all the way through. It builds and builds and i couldnt stop reading until i knew what had happened.

I still dont, but hey ho, a headfuck in the best possible way. I think.

Thanks to netgalley for an advanced copy

Maybe I am missing something but I thought this story was horribly disjointed and overall messy writing. There is a point reached when a story is overwhelmingly vague and this story has reached that point.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this title. My review is now live on my blog and Goodreads and I will shortly be linking to it on social media. Here is the full transcript:

Fever Dream was a fascinating read. It took me a few pages to get into the narrative style (which alternates a dream/fevered conversation with memories of past events), but once I adjusted to it, I stopped noticing the jumps. This is not a traditional narrative, where the point of the story is clear, but if you enjoy immersing yourself in dream-like, stream-of-consciousness tales that are more psychological, this could well be the book for you. As a novella, I read it in a single sitting, and it certainly left me with plenty to think about after I closed the final page.