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SUCH SMALL HANDS - Andres Barba (2017)

“Her father died instantly, her mother in the hospital.” 

Marina is seven years old, and when her parents are killed in a car crash, she’s left with nothing but a scar and a doll. At the orphanage, the other girls are quick to notice both. Marina soon transfixes them, and their dark obsession becomes increasingly disturbing with every page of the book. 'Such Small Hands' is too long to be a short story, and too short to be a novel... but size doesn't matter when a book is as brilliant as this one.

The novella, translated from Spanish, is a chilling work of horror. It excels in its depiction of childhood, capturing the frightening hyperrealism of a child’s imagined world. Mundane moments become chilling rituals, whilst trivial signs take on dark and significant meanings. The girls are feverishly serious in the face of the absurd, and in this Barba’s style is reminiscent of William Golding. His descriptions of childhood are not just disturbing, however, but also feel scarily nostalgic. At every turn, I was reminded of my own experiences: I felt like that when a new kid joined my school! I used to fake sleep when my parents came to check on me! I held a funeral for a caterpillar in the playground!

And this sense of familiarity is what makes the story so wonderfully poignant. Everybody knows that the unknown can be frightening, but Barba masterfully demonstrates that familiarity can be terrifying too. We all had bad thoughts when we were younger, we all did bad things - so we'll all see a part of ourselves in the actions of these girls. Children aren’t evil, at least not deliberately... but at the beginning of our lives, none of us understand all the consequences of our actions. This makes a child uniquely dangerous; in Barba’s characters, we see people too innocent to have developed their own consciences. The girls feel dangerous because we know that they’re capable of wrongdoing. They are yet to develop a moral filter. And we know this because we were once the same. 

Admittedly, the end of the story doesn’t quite live up to the brilliant build up, but this is to be expected. With any work of horror, creating tension is a lot easier than achieving a pay off at the end. In ‘Such Small Hands’, the climax feels a little bit rushed, which means it isn’t quite as poignant as the rest of the book. The reader isn't given enough time and space to fully digest what is actually happening... so the end feels slightly abrupt. A single page of climax to end eighty pages of build up feels a little disproportionate. The final passages are disturbing, shocking, horrifying, memorable... but just a little bit too short. They leave me wanting more - and not in a good way. 

But it seems that Portobello Books were aware of this fact. Because this edition does offer more after the end of the story. The afterword, by Edmund White, is a masterful inclusion for one simple reason: it explains that this story is based on a real event. And this revelation changes everything. Suddenly, the sense of horror ascends to a whole new level: 'Such Small Hands' is transformed from a creepy ghost story into a terrifying account of a real life event. In some ways, it’s the ultimate twist: discovering that a work of fiction is actually a work of fact. 

All at once, the story felt hyperrealistic.

HAVE YOU READ THE BOOK? LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THOUGHT IN THE COMMENTS!

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