Among the Hedges

Casi, who is almost fourteen years old, has been skipping school and spending her days hidden among the hedges in a local park, listening to music and reading women's magazines. One day, Viejo, a fifty-year-old man, stumbles upon her hiding place, and the two strike up a friendship. He tells her about birds and Nina Simone, buys her soda and chips, and spends almost every day talking with her.

Despite their age gap, there's something childlike about Viejo that leads Casi to believe that he's not like the other men she's encountered, the dangerous ones. But Viejo has a number of secrets in his past--all of which would be of grave concern to Casi's parents or any other adult who witnessed one of their rendezvous. As these secrets rise to the surface, the clock is ticking, the weather is growing cold and the school is untangling Casi's set of lies, setting up a moment where something has to give.

With spare, direct prose, Sara Mesa imbues these two outcasts with a great deal of warmth, raising questions about society's prejudices and assumptions, and creating a truly moving novel of an inappropriate relationship.

Author: Sara Mesa
Publisher: Open Letter
Published: 05/18/2021
Pages: 120
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.35lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.00w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9781948830393


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 03/15/2021
Shelf Awareness 05/25/2021

About the Author
Mesa, Sara: - Sara Mesa is the author of eight works of fiction, including Scar (winner of the Ojo Critico Prize), Four by Four (a finalist for the Herralde Prize), An Invisible Fire (winner of the Premio Málaga de Novela), Among the Hedges, and Un amor. Her works have been translated into more than ten different languages, and she has been widely praised for her concise, sharp writing style.McDowell, Megan: - Megan McDowell has translated many of the most important Latin American writers working today, including Samanta Schweblin and Alejandro Zambra. Her translations have won the English PEN award and the Premio Valle-Inclán, and been nominated three times for the International Booker Prize. Her short story translations have been featured in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Tin House, McSweeney's, and Granta, among others. In 2020 she won an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Santiago, Chile.