On a stormy night, two women arrive at the isolated seaside home of an unnamed male narrator: one is his former lover, the other a mysterious woman who claims to be the Mexican writer Amparo Dávila. 

First published in Spanish in 2002, The Iliac Crest is a strange, claustrophobic novel about gender, classification and the instability of the self. Rivera Garza moves between gothic fiction, psychological unease and philosophical inquiry as the narrator becomes increasingly obsessed with proving who — and what — everyone around him really is. Beneath its nightmarish domestic plot sits a sharper question about the violence involved in naming people, assigning them identities and deciding which bodies are legible. Eerie, funny, slippery and deliberately difficult to pin down.

And Other Stories, UK, 2018. First UK edition, first printing. Paperback. Translated from the Spanish by Sarah Booker. Very light shelf wear and minor handling to covers; internally clean and unmarked, binding firm. Near fine condition.