Bloat - by Raquel Abend (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

A dark and consuming novel about oil, power, beauty, and the quiet resistance of women in a dystopia where death is not the ultimate harm

My fellow Venezuelans, we're going to swim in black gold. Remember this year: 1999. We're not just reclaiming our spring, our Thames, our Seine. We're reclaiming our country.

In an alternate Caracas, the oil fields have dried up, and executives have implemented a new system for oil production: collecting corpses and processing them into necrofuel.

In four interlocking sections that unfold in reverse chronology, Bloat follows the lives of women who live under this exploitative regime. Mercedita grieves the death of her father and resents the intrusion of investigators into her home. Merced, a sex worker living with an oil executive, struggles to retain her agency amid an increasingly restricted life. After Mamé goes missing, a watchman tries to find her while he and his nephew participate in the paramilitary that enabled her disappearance. And Mercy battles an illness while working at a restaurant frequented by the powerful.

Raquel Abend's first book translated into English explores totalitarianism in a country with two major exports: oil and pageant queens. In visceral prose that foregrounds the bleakness of its dystopia, Bloat makes tangible the grief, ecological devastation, and violence faced by women in a city where bodies are primarily a means to an economic end. And yet, these women resist their dehumanization, forging community and owning their desires despite the darkness of their world.

Review Quotes

"Raquel Abend's novel is written in four parts that, like an exquisite corpse, connect to form a troubling image. Bloat is a delirious and compelling book about women trapped in an oil-soaked dystopia where, if you're not struggling to make ends meet, you're a criminal or already dead."--Brian Evenson

"Daringly imaginative and impeccably written. Raquel Abend employs narrative tools with the care of a poet, poses questions about the ways extractive, totalitarian regimes crush the human spirit, and commends how women build community despite all odds. Abend is a rising star."--Cristina Rivera Garza

"Bloat is a hauntingly original novel with a dystopian premise that is all too plausible. It casts an unblinking eye on the ways oppressive societies consume their citizens, while exploring how life endures even under the bleakest circumstances. It will stay with me for a long time."--Daniel Loedel

About the Author

Raquel Abend holds a PhD in creative writing in Spanish and art history from the University of Houston. She is the author of two novels, a short story collection, and three poetry collections. She lives in Houston.

Lizzie Davis has translated over a dozen books, including novels by Juan Cárdenas, Elena Medel, Daniela Tarazona, and Pilar Fraile. She is the executive editor at Transit Books, after nearly a decade at Coffee House Press. She lives in Berkeley.