Addictively terrifying
'Unfit' a feverish account of just how far a mother will go

Avant-garde publisher New Directions has put to orbit this past October another glass-shattering novel. True to its proclivity since 1936 of seeking the most edgy novelists – authors the mainstream fiction industry sends pink slips for submissions they deem mutinous to the profitable pace they’ve set with midlist authors in “trade” paperback. 

This history of New Directions and the eulogizing of their authors is part of every book they publish. “Unfit,” by Ariana Harwicz, is the oddity we’re looking at today in “Murder Ink.” It’s neither a book about murder nor police perfidy or current dystopian events. 

“Unfit’’ is a 103-page evasion of authority by a fed-up, aggrieved, near-crazy mother of twin 5-year-old boys. Their unreliable father wants his estranged, unstable ex-wife to surrender custody. 

Lisa is the angry mother and writer of this stream-of-consciousness unbosoming. Entrapped by the social and legal system faced, this Jewish Argentinian immigrant living in a Christian town in rural France is trying to keep her children from the antisemitic parents of her wayward ex, Armond.

This is not as simple a story as I just made it sound. Ariana Harwicz is referred to in her New Directions biography as a fiercely independent writer and thinker born in Argentina in 1977. She studied comparative literature at the Sorbonne and has been translated into more than 20 languages and longlisted for the Booker International Prize for her novel “Die, My Love.” 

Translated from Spanish by Jessie Mendez Sayer, “Unfit” is a feverish account of an overwhelmed mother who is deprived of her sons and pulls the emergency cord to steal her children from their beds in the dark of night. As a salvo, she sets fire to her hateful in-laws’ hay barn, skulking away destined for nowhere but far away. New Directions describes “Unfit” as addictively terrifying, savagely sophisticated and shockingly brilliant. 

What makes “Unfit’’ the “Murder Ink’’ choice for February is that I couldn’t read it at first because of its stream-of-consciousness writing, changing subjects mid-sentence. At first, the over-the-road nonsense with sleeping in the woods, gas station bathrooms, eating with truckers and avoiding police, amid threats of mental institutions, prison and punishment, confused me. I quit. It was too ridiculous; too far out there.

But it mysteriously found its way back to the top of the pile of books waiting to be chosen for “Murder Ink.” I picked it up again and again, reading two, four, five pages. Before long, I was halfway through the 100-page book. And it made my blood run cold to follow such a desperate and frightened mother with such happy-but-doomed children on a roadtrip that could only end grievously.  

I couldn’t put “Unfit’’ down. I read it twice and probably three times before my fear settled into anger, then wisdom and then despair for everything so very wrong with Lisa’s flight to freedom, and everything so wrong with my country right now.

If you want to continue at your current comfort level, my recommendation is to stay away from “Unfit.’’ It will shred your insides. It will force you to see the lies and deceptions that get painted over with truth in order to mollify ignominy.