A breakout, genre-blurring novel from one of the most exciting new voices of Latin American’s feminist gothic.
Across two different time periods, two women confront fear, loneliness, mortality, and a haunting yearning that will not let them rest. In the nineteenth century, a vampire arrives from Europe to the coast of Buenos Aires, on the run from the Church. She must adapt, intermingle with humans, and, most importantly, be discreet.
In present-day Buenos Aires, a woman finds herself at an impasse as she grapples with her mother’s terminal illness and her own relationship with motherhood. When she first encounters the vampire in a cemetery, something ignites within the two women — and they cross a threshold from which there’s no turning back.
Thirst plays with the boundaries of genre while exploring the limits of female agency, the consuming power of desire, and the fragile vitality of even the most immortal of creatures.
‘This gripping tale is full of queer representation and lush, lyrical passages, all while exploring death with an air of nihilism … Vampires are making a comeback, and Yuszczuk is spearheading their revival with this bloody novel.’
The New York Times
‘Two women walk the streets of Buenos Aires two centuries apart. They are connected by exile and blood: the exile of a vampire who fled Europe like so many others, and the exile of a woman on the brink of orphanhood; the blood of kinship and the blood of death. Marina Yuszczuk masterfully blends past and present, the intimate and the historical, and the literary traditions that have shaped Argentine literature into what it is today to create a sensual and deeply personal novel.’
Fernanda Trías, author of Pink Slime
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‘Thirst cleverly pulls you in with its melancholy prose and its setting and its haunting mood and before you know it you’ve read the whole thing while chewing on your hair. An evocative tale that both recalls and subverts the classic gothic vampire novel. What a mesmerising read.’
Virginia Feito, author of Mrs. March
‘There is the powerful beat of a gothic heart in this gripping, dark, and sensual novel. Intimate and piercing, it manages to dissect maternal love while examining the nature of desire. A captivating and thrilling read.’
Lucie McKnight Hardy, author of Dead Relatives
‘Mesmerisingly translated by Cleary, Yuszczuk’s prose is meticulous, vibrant, propulsive, and masterfully paced. Her characterisations will stir readers’ emotions, empathy in particular; we suffer characters’ longing, their mournful feelings of being locked into inescapable circumstances. Thirst is an intense, haunting, and captivating novel that draws readers in from beginning to end.’
Lillian Dabney, Booklist
‘If we’re in the midst of a vampire renaissance, Marina Yuszczuk’s bloody, seductive contribution arrives with fangs bared. Dark as a bat’s wing, Thirst feels like Carmen Maria Machado meets Anne Rice, with a backdrop of Buenos Aires. Absolutely exquisite.’
Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller
‘This is an excellent novel. Yuszczuk is masterful at using the monstrous and the immortal to shed light on ordinary human things.’
Marina Scholtz, Literary Review
‘Marina Yuszczuk is a literary force, I'm obsessed and she’s going straight into my auto-buy authors list. This is one of those novels that I can definitely see myself re-reading in the future and highlighting all my favourite quotes and passages. I absorbed this novel in two days and it’s one of my favourite things I’ve read this year.’
Jamie Lee, Waterstones Trafford Centre
‘Thirst is unlike anything I’ve read before. The narrative is so gripping and immersive, and the characters jump off the page, they feel so real!’
Chloe Michelle Howarth, author of Sunburn
‘It is *everything* I was craving at the moment since I’ve been desperate for a literary horror to get me ready for autumn.’
@bookenders
‘Pensive and erotic … I was entranced by Yuszczuk’s writing, which captures a century of national transformation within its deeply personal, emotive narrative and delivers a thrilling interpretation of gothic tropes.’
Joe Murray, Readings
