"Mariana Enriquez's fiction is haunted by the specter of late-twentieth-century Latin American history. . . . Yet because the fiction is so alive, the experience of being in her world is enjoyable."--Francine Prose, New York Review of Books

"Stories of spirits and disappearances collectively address the mystery of loss through narratives that are as gripping as they are chilling."--Chicago Review of Books

"Enriquez's gaze throughout the collection is unflinching, taking readers into dark and grotesque territory, yet it is her morality, a pervasive sense of right and wrong, that anchors each story and prevents the collection from veering into the lurid horror of tabloid tragedy."--Ploughshares

"Like her Chilean neighbor, the late Roberto Bolaño, Mariana Enriquez crafts fiction about the darkest recesses of the human heart that makes you feel light after reading it--uplifted by the precision and poetry of her characters' voices."--The A.V. Club

"The Dangers of Smoking in Bed establishes Enríquez as a premier literary voice. Enríquez's extraordinary--and extraordinarily ominous--fiction holds up a mirror to our bewildering times, when borders between the everyday and the inexplicable blur, and converge."--O: The Oprah Magazine

"Horrors are relayed in a stylish deadpan. . . . Enriquez's plots deteriorate with satisfying celerity."--The New York Times Book Review

"[A] group of off-kilter tales enlivened by captivating unease. Every facet of her writing unsettles. . . . Enriquez, superbly translated by Megan McDowell, masterfully darts from disturbing to funny to repulsive without jarring the reader's momentum--or, rather, the disturbance is built into the momentum."--Tasteful Rude

"An atmospheric assemblage of cunning and cutting Argentine gothic tales . . . insidiously absorbing, like quicksand."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Enriquez's wide-ranging imagination and ravenous appetite for morbid scenarios often reaches sublime heights. Adventurous readers will be rewarded in these trips into the macabre."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Enriquez['s] . . . straightforward delivery and matter-of-fact tone that belie the wild, gasp-worthy action unfolding on the page."--Booklist

"Rotting little ghosts, heartbeat fetishes, curses and witches and meat: Each of these stories is a luscious, bewitching nightmare. I adore this book."--Kirsty Logan, author of The Gracekeepers

"I loved these twisted tales, these lustful whispers in the dark. There is some serious power in this writing."--Daisy Johnson, author of Sisters