Monstrilio: A Book Musing

This novel, by Gerardo Samano Cordova, opens brutally, then unfolds with such brilliance…

Their baby was born with an underdeveloped lung and not expected to live long. He makes it a few years, then passes in his childhood bed, leaving his parents distraught. This happens in the first paragraph of the novel, so I’m not spoiling anything to tell you that. The boy’s mother, in grief shock, cuts a portion of her son’s lung out of him and pockets it. She returns to her native Mexico and her mother’s maid warns her: Do not feed this piece of lung. So begins the rich saga of Monstrilio. This novel had me weeping as I drove along listening to it. The mother’s grief, then her insistence that the strange product of her grief becomes something more socially acceptable, less vile and vampiric, then her family’s reaction to the thing this grief has wrought—all of it hit me square in my heart space like an iron weight. I was in a peevish, melancholic state of mind as I read this work. My boyfriend asked me why I would read this kind of story, which stays with me and impacts my day in such a raw manner. It’s a good question. Over the past year, I have worked to be a better curator of what I allow into my head space. Instead of true crime podcasts, I will listen to inspiring, uplifting interviews. Instead of watching Real Housewives, I will read the Bible. However, no part of me felt it was a poor choice to read this beautiful novel. I explained to my boyfriend that while this story did break my heart, it did so in all the best ways, enriching my life and helping me to feel less alone. Because I have known grief like this—a gnarled, precious pain that defies all logic and takes on a life of its own. Something monstrous that your family wishes away because it is so grotesque. Something, despite its agony, you hold onto because it is what you have left of the soul you loved so deeply. Oh, this book got me. It caught me and held me. It made me feel peevish and stirred up old feelings. It punctured my heart and let compassion flow in. It frustrated me. And I would read it all again—after a palate cleanser funny read.