The Accidentals: Stories

by Guadalupe Nettel, Rosalind Harvey (translator)

From the International Booker Shortlisted author of Still Born, a powerful collection of stories about characters coping with estrangement, isolation, and the unknown.

Acclaimed for her piercing insights and razor-sharp prose, award winning author Guadalupe Nettel introduces us to eight characters who are each in their own way lost and wandering, struggling to connect with the people around them.

In “Imprinting,” Nettel shows us a young woman finding an unexpected affinity with an estranged uncle, whose exile from the family is too deep a secret for his niece to know. She introduces us, in “Life Elsewhere,” to a frustrated actor who begins, without realizing it, to take over the life and house of a more successful former colleague. And in “The Torpor,” we meet a woman who lives with her children in a dying world where it is better to be asleep than awake.

With her signature bold, stark style of writing that makes her work “a revelation” (Katie Kitamura, author of INTIMACIES), this stunning collection interrogates humanity's struggle to communicate and reveals the universal longing for connection.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Spanish Literature, Short Story Collection

136 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 6, 2023

About the author

Guadalupe Nettel (born 1973) is a Mexican writer. She was born in Mexico City and obtained a PhD in linguistics from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She has published in several genres, both fiction and non-fiction.

Nettel is a prolific author and a regular contributor to both Spanish- and French-language magazines, including Letras Libres, Hoja por hoja, L'atelier du roman, and L'inconvénient. In 2006 she was voted one of thirty-nine most important Latin American writers under the age of thirty-nine at the Bogotá Hay Festival.

She has lived in Montreal and Paris, and is now based in Barcelona, where she works as a translator and holds writing seminars and a workshop on Potential Literature (based on the French Oulipo). She is the author of Juegos de artificio [False Games], Les jours fossiles [Fossil Days], Pétalos y otras historias incómodas [Petals and other Awkward Stories], and El huésped [The Host], and the recipient of the Premio Herralde, third place, for El huésped, and the 2008 Premio Antonin Artaud and the 2007 Gilbert Owen Short Story Prize in Mexico for Pétalos.

Guadalupe Nettel’s stories have been described as “marvellous” by the distinguished Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vázquez, and the critic Juan Ignacio Boido has praised Nettel’s creation of “a universe where Roberto Bolaño’s visceral poets rub shoulders with the fragile but unbreakable women of Haruki Murakami.”

Reviews

[Brittany’sBoundByBloodBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

When life takes an unexpected nosedive, much like an albatross straying from its course, the results can be both mesmerizing and unsettling, something Guadalupe Nettel masterfully explores in The Accidentals: Stories.



Translated by the ever-excellent Rosalind Harvey, this collection of eight tales moves between the real and the uncanny, dissecting the hidden fractures in seemingly ordinary lives. Nettel’s signature deadpan tone and sharp, observational prose make for an enthralling read, where each story feels like peering through a crack in reality, what initially appears mundane is anything but.

The stories revolve around moments of disruption: a family holiday tinged with menace, a couple whose waking life is more suffocating than sleep, a man whose small attempt at change leads to unforeseen consequences. Without slipping neatly into horror, suspense, or fantasy, Nettel instead crafts a world that dances at the edges of these genres, leaving the reader with an enduring sense of unease.

Standouts include The Pink Door, a darkly humorous meditation on the consequences of dissatisfaction, and Playing With Fire, where the real terror lurks in what remains unspoken. Torpor eerily mirrors contemporary anxieties, imagining a family trapped in a world gripped by a virus without a cure. The Fellowship of Orphans and the title story explore themes of childhood friendships severed by fate, revealing how life’s unpredictable currents pull us in opposite directions.



Remarkably, there’s no weak link in this collection, every story earns its place, each unsettling in its own quiet, thought-provoking way. With evocative imagery and a narrative style that is both literary and accessible, The Accidentals showcases a different side of Nettel’s talent, complementing the realism of Still Born while venturing into more shadowy, suggestive spaces.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely. Nettel’s storytelling is magnetic, her prose disarmingly precise, and this collection is proof that even the smallest of life’s disturbances can leave a lasting impact.

📖📖📖📖– Four out of five books because every story in this collection is worth savoring.

[Mamen Monsoriu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guadalupe Nettel escribe para mí. Aunque ella todavía no lo sepa.

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A striking, unsettling collection from Mexican writer Guadalupe Nettel first published in 2023 as Los Divagantes (The Wanderers). Keenly observed, admirably restrained, these are piercing, powerful yet elegant pieces. There’s an emphasis on family relationships, on fragile intimacies, the known and the unknowable. Often elliptical and enigmatic, these range from realist like “Imprinting” to the fantastical in “The Pink Door” and the dystopian in “The Torpor.”

It’s difficult to single out specific entries, these are uniformly strong, but I was particularly impressed by the subtle “Imprinting” which revolves around schoolgirl Antonia’s chance encounter with a dying uncle. Frank has been all but written out of her family’s history, for reasons that remain shrouded in mystery. It’s a carefully-crafted exploration of family secrets, Nettel never reveals the true nature of Frank’s transgressions but his behaviour hints at something dangerous and predatory. The slightly surreal, fable-like “The Pink Door” - a marvellous variation on a careful-what-you-wish-for narrative - highlights the dangers of nostalgia, the unintended consequences of the choices we make. The title story is an unusual take on domestic upheaval, exile, and political instability presented through the experiences of two childhood friends; while “The Torpor” imagines a society in which lockdown never ends, opening up issues around creeping authoritarianism and troubling responses to climate change. Set in Barcelona “Life Elsewhere” plays with ideas around envy, obsession, and doubling – a subject Nettel clearly finds fascinating.

There’s an all-pervasive air of claustrophobic melancholy, of loss and disorientation, which partly reflects the collection’s origins in the pandemic years, its mirroring of Nettel’s thoughts and feelings during this time: her experience of lockdowns, confinement, and sense of a world bizarrely altered. Overall, gripping and memorable. Translated by Rosalind Harvey.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Fitzcarraldo for an ARC

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was overwhelmed by an undefinable sensation, too serene to be called anxiety, but unpleasant enough not to go unnoticed

After her Still Born, Nettel has been firmly on my radar and this collection of stories has sealed the deal. These tales are often suggestive rather than clearly defined and completed but that adds effectively to the sense of uneasy contingencies that they articulate.

Without tipping cleanly into defined genre categories like horror, suspense or fantasy, these stories play around the edges of all of these and boundary-cross in a free and creative way. They deal with disruptions: moments when something changes, when the past comes into clear view, when the present becomes untenable, when perceptions veer off in uncanny directions and when life gets shunted off its path. There may be a dark humour ('The Pink Door') but also tales where what is admitted on the surface isn't nearly as disturbing as what isn't expressed by the narrator (the brilliant 'Playing With Fire', for example).

With involving writing and some stop-and-read-it-again imagery, Nettel's work here is literarily sophisticated while appearing accessible and open. This is a good companion to the realist mode of Still Born, showcasing a different side of Nettel's writing which appears to draw on wider Latin American models.

Unusually for a collection, there isn't a single 'dud' story here: every one in this volume earns its place and offers different trajectories around a theme of disturbance, disruptions and disjunctions.

Many thanks to Fitzcarraldo for an ARC via NetGalley

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although reading a book of short stories might take away some of my engagement, this one kept me fully there, eager for the next one.

Nettel's messages are not direct and easily discernible, but instead are steadily ephemeral. What is right? What is wrong? What does the heart desire? What does the mind say? It gets blurry. Nettel writes with a steady pen which successfully captures the blurriness in our lives, in the decisions that we take, how every unsteady step might lead to one ending or another. We but peer through the glass darkly.

The Stories themselves:

Imprinting - but tell me what happened.
The Fellowship of Orphans - do onto others what you'd want done to you.
Playing with Fire - oh no, there might be a cuckoo in our nest
The Pink Door - be very very careful what you wish for.
A forest under the Earth - me and the tree that defines me.
Life Elsewhere - finely a glove that fits me.
The Accidentals - here, there, but where?
The Torpor - real, scarily so.

An ARC kindly give by author/publisher via Netgalley.

[Korcan Derinsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

Yoldan Çıkanlar sekiz farklı öyküden oluşan bir öykü kitabı. Öykülerde tür çeşitliliği göze çarpıyor ki ben böyle derlemeleri çok seviyorum. Fantastikten bilimkurguya dek geniş bir gerçeklik skalasında ilerleyen öykülerin hemen hepsinde olağan akışı kıran bir olay oluyor ve karakterler de bunun fiziki/psikolojik sonuçlarıyla mücadele etmek / yüzleşmek zorunda kalıyorlar. Nettel’in görece basit denebilecek durumlardan etkileyici yerlere varmasını çok seviyorum. Mesela “Yetim Kardeşliği” öyküsü tam da böyle, basit ama bir o kadar da çarpıcı. Bir de genelde öykü kitaplarında çok sevdiğimiz birkaç öykü olur diğerleri ortalamadır ya, burada öyle değil. Öykülerin hepsi bence aynı kalitede. “Başka Yerde Hayat” ve “Ateşle Oyun” favorilerim ama tamamen kişisel sebeplerden. Yoksa diğer öyküler de bunlardan aşağı değiller. Çok severek okudum. Banu Karakaş’ın çevirisi de her zaman olduğu gibi kusursuz.

[Óscar Moreno (OscarBooker) · Rating 4 out of 5]

En verdad disfruté mucho esta compilación de relatos.

Mi favorito, sin duda alguna, fue “la puerta rosada” pues voló mi imaginación y me dio mucho para cuestionar.

Creo que no hay mucho por decirles más que me parecieron frescos, muy entretenidos y súper interesantes.

Sólo hubo dos cuentos que realmente no me encantaron; no conecté. Pero fuera de eso hay muchas temáticas que me gustaron: migración forzada, lazos familiares, amor, etc.

¿Se los recomiendo? Definitivamente, pues acabo de descubrir la faceta cuentista de Nettel y es un gran acierto tomar estos libros y darles una leída.

[Maxwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really wish there was more stories in this collection because I enjoyed it so much! They were all very solid with no story being a dud in the whole bunch. She reminds me a lot of Samanta Schweblin. The stories look a lot at how humans communicate and relate to one another on an individual level, in a family setting, and at a societal level as well. They’re kind of eerie without being scary. They plumb the depths of our secrets and how well we really know one another. A couple lean into fabulism or magical realism which was unexpected but a delightful element. All in all a great collection!

My favorite stories:
- “A Forest Under the Earth”
- “The Accidentals”
- “The Torpor”
- “Imprinting”

[Maria Clara · Rating 3 out of 5]

¿QUÉ PASA CUANDO UN ALVATROS PIERDE EL RUMBO POR FALTA DE VIENTO?

🌸Sin duda, cuando este mágico suceso se da, es porque Guadalupe Nettel está escribiendo y sus personajes adquieren el vuelo errante y a veces enloquecedor de estas aves.

🌸Y, con esta misma falta de viento, los protagonistas de estos ocho relatos, nos muestran sus miedos y anhelos más profundos como si de un lienzo se tratara, convirtiéndonos en espectadores privilegiados de qué pasa cuando por fin consiguen lo que tanto anhelan poseer.

🌸Ocho relatos que viajan entre el realismo y la fantasía.
🌸Ocho vidas,
🌸Ocho personajes,
🌸y un lector...

[Paula Mota · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5*

I had read something about the traces left in our memory by the touch and scent of those we come into contact with in the first few years of our lives. Imprinting, I think it’s called.

Guadalupe Nettel regressa sempre aos temas que lhe são queridos, os laços familiares e a infância, numa escrita despretensiosa onde, ainda assim, as metáforas continuam algo óbvias, como em “The forest under the earth” e “The accidentals”. Contrariamente ao que é habitual em mim, que prefiro o realismo, é no campo da fantasia e da distopia que a autora consegue ir mais longe nestes oito contos. Em “The pink door” um homem paga o preço de ter uma mulher mais jovem e, em “The torpor”, as personagens vivem numa pandemia que se tornou realmente “o novo normal”, em que as crianças nunca conheceram outra realidade para além do confinamento.

Imprinting – 3*
The fellowship of the orphans -4*
Playing with fire – 4*
The pink door – 4,5*
A forest under the earth – 3*
Life elsewhere – 3,5*
The accidentals – 3*
The torpor – 4,5*

[Yaprak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Daha önce Benzersiz Kızım romanını okuduğum Meksikalı yazar Guadalupe Nettel, öyküleriyle beni kalbimden vurdu desem yeri. Benzersiz Kızım romanı için ''felsefi soruları, büyük büyük cümleler kurmadan soruyor ve okuruna da sorduruyor'' yazmışım. Bu kitapta yer alan sekiz öykü ise bana Nettel'in asıl ustalığının öykü yazarlığında olduğunu düşündürdü.

Kimi fantastik kimi distopik kimi psikolojik gerilim türünde diyebileceğimiz bu sekiz öyküyü hayranlıkla ve keyifle okudum. Bir yandan Cortazar'ın öykülerini okumaya devam ettiğim için başka bir öykü kitabı okumanın diğer yazara haksızlık olacağını düşünüyordum. Nettel bana adeta ''Beni küçük görme!'' diyerek şovunu yaptı. Özellikle kitaba adını veren Yoldan Çıkanlar-ki kendisi albatroslardan bahsetmesiyle de favorim- uzun zamandır okuduğum en güzel giriş bölümlerinden birine sahip.

Çocukluk bizim çocukken dilediğimizin aksine öyle bir defada sona ermiyor. Orada duruyor, önce olgun sonra çökmüş vücutlarımızda çömelmiş, sessizce bekliyor, ta ki yıllar sonra bir gün, omuzlarımızda taşıdığımız acı ve umutsuzluk yükünün bizi telafisi mümkün olmayan bir yetişkine dönüştürdüğüne inandığımızda, bir yıldırım hızı ve kuvvetiyle yeniden ortaya çıkana, tazeliğiyle, masumiyetiyle, şaşmaz saflığıyla canımızı acıtana, ama hepsinden önemlisi bunun gerçekten ondan kalan son titrek ışık olduğunun kesinliğiyle bizi yaralayana dek.

Mateo García Elizondo'nun üzerine yine Meksika'dan çıkmış harika bir eser okudum bu vesileyle. Ocak ayını sıcak ülkelerde geçiyor, Latin Amerika Edebiyatı'na bir kez daha hayran kalıyorum.

[Kate O'Shea · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Accidentals is a collection of short stories by award winning novelist, Guadalupe Nettel. This collection deals with people coping with isolation, estrangement and the unknown.

My favourites were the title story about a boy and a girl who are the closest of friends but end up living in different countries; Torpor which imagines a family's life in a world coping with a virus for which there is no vaccine; Pink Door which tells the story of a man enticed into changing his life simply by eating a piece of confectionery. I think Pink Door edged it with the favouritism because it seemed so plausible - we are dissatisfied, we want a change but are we ever prepared for the outcome of change.

The writing is superb and I found myself wanting to rush through these stories and had to force myself to slow down. They are well worth savouring.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Fitzcarraldo for the advance review copy. Most appreciated.

[Aletheia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ahora que -para sorpresa de muchos- tengo más tiempo, estoy pagando deudas de lecturas pasadas. Está colección era la LC del club Coherencia de abril, que abandoné temporalmente por el mismo motivo por el que le doy tres estrellas.

"Al comienzo, el descanso me hizo bien, pero después me di cuenta de que cada día quiero dormir más, golosamente, no porque lo necesite sino porque los sueños son lo más interesante que sucede en mi vida."

Son relatos con buen ritmo, ágiles pero olvidables. No están mal escritos, solo es que no tienen gran diferencia entre ellos. Todos en primera persona y, para mí, les sobran elementos y les falta profundidad: me sonaban a ejercicios de taller de escritura.

[Come Musica · Rating 4 out of 5]

“A pensarci bene, l’abitudine di fare visita al luogo in cui riposano le ossa delle persone che amiamo è assurda, ma nella vita errabonda che avevamo sempre condotto, la mia famiglia era stato il mio unico nido, la mia unica tana.”

Guadalupe Nettel conferma la sua bravura anche in questa raccolta di otto racconti: in ogni racconto, con un incipit ad effetto, il lettore è subito catapultato nella storia e il finale va sempre in una direzione diversa da quanto ci si aspetta.

Scrive Cristina Taglietti, su La Lettura del 3 settembre 2023: “Racconti in cui l'ordinario e l'anomalia, il quotidiano e l'insondabile, il reale e il fantastico si incontrano lasciando nel lettore una sottile, fertile inquietudine.”

Mi sembra che in ciascuno di questi racconti la Nettel si collochi nella zona d’ombra che separa il senso di appartenenza dall’estraneità:
“Quindi, domandai ancora una volta a Ernesto Palleiro, che a quel punto mi guardava con sospetto, come se avesse davanti una persona che sta perdendo la ragione: dopo vent’anni passati a mettere radici in un altro paese, ci si può reinserire come se niente fosse nel luogo d’origine?
«Non lo so» rispose lui, alla fine.”

Ci sono alcuni racconti che mi hanno colpita più di altri:
- L’imprinting
- La confraternita degli orfani
- La vita altrove
- Albatri vaganti
- Il torpore

Questo ultimo racconto, in cui si affrontano il tema della pandemia e dei cambiamenti climatici, è realistico e al tempo distopico, a mio avviso… infatti non è così lontano da ciò che potrebbe davvero accadere.

È una questione di confini.
È anche una questione di rifugi:

“Alcune mattine mi sveglio e mi sento soffocare, sull’orlo di un attacco di nervi, con il desiderio di correre per ore. In quei momenti il mio rifugio è il balcone della cucina, dal quale si vede un pezzettino di cielo. Mi dico che quello spazio di cinque metri quadrati è tutto ciò che distingue questa casa da una tomba.”

[Iris L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Espléndida, maravillosa. Los 8 cuentos son Mágicos.

Guadalupe me fascina y me hipnotiza con sus historias, en donde inventa personajes que hablan muy cerca de mi.

Fue una inmersión total en historias que confrontan miedos y realidades, familia, migración, pertenencia, identidad, maternidad y en todos los cuentos invoca las relaciones filiales y lo hace de una forma aterradora y estremecedora pero es adictiva y hechizante.

Los relatos son todos ágiles. Cierra sus finales como entradas de un diario en donde parece que mañana te contará un poco más.
Si me viera obligada a tener uno favorito sería “los divagantes” que me ha tocado muy profundamente.

Una galaxia para Nettel que me roba el corazón y el alma con su escritura.

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Pero el mundo –lo sé por experiencia– está lleno de aves raras que ni siquiera sospechan que lo son."

[City ReadersMag · Rating 3 out of 5]

”Daha küçücük bir kız çocuğuyken öğrendim kimsenin yetişemeyeceği kadar yukarılara tırmanmayı.”

Yoldan Çıkanlar, toplumun kıyısında duran hayatlara yakından bakıyor. Topluma uyum sağlayamamış ya da belki hiç denememiş karakterler bunlar. Hikayeler kısa ama etkili bazen bir evin içinden, bazen bir çocuğun gözünden bazen de küçük bir anın içinden geçiyor. Nettel’in anlatımı sade ama güçlü. Öykülerini tamamlamıyor, sadece doğru bir yerde duruyor. Geri kalanını okura ve onun zihnine bırakıyor. Bazı şeyleri söylemek yerine sezdiriyor. Banu Karakaş’ın çevrisi de metnin yalın havasını başarıyla yansıtıyor.

https://www.instagram.com/cityreaders...

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before he died, my uncle was in hospital for three weeks. I found out due to a coincidence, or what the surrealists used to call ‘objective chance’, to describe those fortuitous events that seem dictated by our destiny.

The Accidentals (2025) is Rosemary Harvey's translation of Los divagantes(2023) by Guadalupe Nettel, a collection of 8 short stories - and these are relatively short, the collection spanning 108 pages in total.

The title story was for me the most effective - two childhood friends now adults: the narrator who travels the world with her itinerant academic parents; and Camilo who stays in the same flat in Mexico where he lived as a child, but who hankers to return to Uruguay, the country from which his parents were exiled when he was an infant. It uses the simile of the rare albatrosses who accidentally crossed the equator, typically in high winds, but are then unable to return (see e.g. here and here), which the narrator deems 'accidentals', as well as drawing on other literary references to the bird:

It was that same year, in my French literature class that they made me read Les fleurs du mal, and I went to request it from the school library. No sooner had they handed me the book than I opened a page at random and the poem about the albatross appeared before me: 'ces rois de l'azur, maladroits et bonteux, where Baudelaire posits it as the poète maudit of nature. I read it to my father that same night. He, in turn, and very eagerly, read to me the poem in which Coleridge tells the story of a sailor who is damned forever for killing an albatross. The text, as dark as any I've read, troubled me immensely. All men of the sea know this story, my father said. I understood, then, the horror of the sailor in Louisiana when he'd seen that his fishing rod had got caught in the beak of that great bird. I copied out a verse by hand to send it to Camilo in answer to his photograph.

(Which reminds me of my favourite literary joke: 'Why was the Ancient Mariner dropped as his team's goalie'; 'Because he stoppeth one of three')

And this theme of 'accidentals' does best tie the collection together, with an unexpected event or a wish fulfilled differently to expectations derailing the lives of the first person narrators. In The Pink Door, a man in his 60s and unsatisfied with his marriage is drawn to the pink door of what he assumes is a new neighbourhood bordello, only to find the shop has other, more fantastical, ways of making his dreams come true, and in ways he comes to regret. In Life Elsewhere another man becomes so obsessed with a flat he and his wife missed out on, that he befriends the couple there and eventually moves in. And in Imprinting, the first story, from which the quote that opens my review is taken, the narrator accidentally comes across a long-lost uncle, the black sheep of the family, and befriends him - but why exactly did he and the rest of the family cut off contact?

The last story The Torpor I found the weakest - a piece of near-future dystopia in a post-pandemic world (with it would seem no vaccine and a virus which reinfects) where the authorities force people to adapt to permanent lockdown, and people take refuge from their loves one, with whom they are too closely confined, in sleep and dreams.

Overall - this was a quick read, but a rather unsatisfying one, none of the stories really grabbing me. 2.5 stars rounded to 3.

[Federica Rampi · Rating 4 out of 5]

L’estraneità del quotidiano

Una raccolta di otto storie che culminano con un finale aperto, un universo in cui la linea sottile tra realtà e immaginazione è molto sfumata, dove i protagonisti si confrontano con le loro paure e l'ignoto.
Guadalupe Nettel riesce a catturare il soprannaturale nella quotidianità.
La prosa delicata dell’autrice crea un'esperienza letteraria leggera e nello stesso tempo profonda come quando ritrae l'infanzia in "Albatri vaganti", dove cattura l'essenza dell'innocenza perduta nella consapevolezza che quell’età non finisce mai
“Rimane lì, rintanata e silenziosa nei nostri corpi maturi, poi appassiti (…) “ ricompare con la rapidità e la potenza di un lampo, ferendoci con la sua freschezza, con la sua innocenza, con la sua dose infallibile di ingenuità”

Ogni racconto, porta con sé una gamma di emozioni, offrendo una prospettiva unica sulla vita e sulla natura umana.
In essi c'è spazio per l'universo oscuro dei segreti, ma anche per quello dei desideri, dell'amore, dell'odio, della speranza, dell'indifferenza, del dolore o del silenzio.
Sono terreno fertile per riflettere sulla famiglia sullo scorrere del tempo, sul desiderio di diventare adulti, sulla nostalgia del passato e gli esili forzati, su ciò che possediamo e a cui non diamo valore.

Ogni racconto poi è legato allo sradicamento che, per ragioni diverse, irrompe e increspa l’anima di ciascuno

"La vita altrove" è anche un inno alla metamorfosi dell’esistenza, sempre in bilico tra realtà traboccante di fantasia e la paura di varcare l'altro lato dello specchio

[Rachel Louise Atkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nettel is such an incredible writer. Coupled with Harvey’s stunning translation, this short story collection is just as gripping and well written as Still Born. It obviously doesn’t have the emotional pull or the character building of that novel, but I loved the slightly eeriness of these stories and the deadpan tone which was just perfect. Nettel shows how when we zoom in on the lives around us which seem perfect, strange things are actually happened beneath the surface. This is a collection which will definitely grip you and I genuinely loved every story inside it - they were all a perfect length as well. Can’t wait for more from both of these women!

[Ruben · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Guadalupe Nettel's work very much and I think it's mostly because her characters feel real and sympathetic to me. The style is unpretentious and straightforward but almost every page there is a description that is spot on.

The first story has everything a short story needs: tension, an ominous feeling, not a word too many and then just half a sentence that puts everything upside down - it was chilling.

There are a couple more gems but also one or two that were not as well executed as that perfect first one.

Overall it is a slight work with just 8 stories, but well worth giving a try - it made me want to go back to reading more short stories.

[Rocío Prieto · Rating 5 out of 5]

El libro de relatos de Guadalupe Nettel, una colección de ocho historias intrincadamente tejidas transporta a los lectores a un universo donde la delgada línea entre la realidad y la imaginación se desdibuja. Enfrentando a sus protagonistas con sus propios miedos y lo desconocido, Nettel captura la esencia de lo sobrenatural en lo cotidiano. "La impronta", "La puerta rosada”, “Un bosque bajo la tierra” y “Los divagantes" se destacan entre los relatos que más me han gustado, cada uno llevando al lector a un viaje inquietante y sorprendente, con giros inesperados que mantienen la tensión hasta la última página.
La prosa de Nettel es una danza delicada entre lo surreal y lo realista, creando una experiencia literaria que se siente ligera y elegante, pero a la vez profunda y reflexiva. Su habilidad para retratar la niñez en "Los divagantes" es excepcional, capturando la esencia de la inocencia perdida y los caminos no tomados. Cada cuento, con su propio tono y época distintivos, presenta una gama de emociones que van desde lo hermoso hasta lo desolador, ofreciendo una perspectiva única sobre la vida y la naturaleza humana.
A través de sus narrativas magistrales, Nettel desafía las convenciones sociales y nos invita a explorar la individualidad y la autenticidad. Sus historias sugieren la importancia de desviarse del camino trazado y de abrazar lo desconocido, fomentando un sentido de autonomía y autenticidad. En definitiva, este libro cautiva con su inquebrantable exploración de lo extraordinario en lo cotidiano, dejando una huella indeleble en el lector y generando un deseo irrefrenable de sumergirse más profundamente en el mundo literario de Guadalupe Nettel.

[Schwarzer_Elch · Rating 2 out of 5]

Los cuentos de “Los divagantes” se caracterizan por tres cosas:

1. Abordan una amplitud de temas que resultan interesantes.
2. Construyen un corpus que atrapa fácilmente.
3. Se desinflan por completo con finales que parecen apresurados y no llevan a nada.

Me habían recomendado muchísimo a Guadalupe Nettel y, lamentablemente, esta primera experiencia no ha sido del todo satisfactoria. Sí, disfruté leyendo la elaboración de los universos que propone, pero ninguno de ellos me dejó nada realmente rescatable. Y el problema no es tener finales abiertos, sino encontrarse con finales que parecen inconclusos. Luego de cada historia me quedaba con una sensación extraña, un “ah, ya” que me parece terrible como epílogo de cualquier relato. No tendría problema en leerla más adelante, quizás con una novela, donde creo que su pluma puede resultarme más interesante debido a que el corpus del texto será más extenso y, como ya mencioné, ese es su fuerte.

[Los libros de Bruno Los libros de Bruno · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5
Buenos relatos me mantuvieron interesada en la lectura , muchos sobre las relaciones personales, de matrimonios así como de re encuentros.
Todos tienen algo que resalta pero desde mi perspectiva los primeros 3 son los que me resultan mas perturbadores , los demás ya se me hicieron mas ligeros.



Saludos a quien me lea

[Ruben]

I love Guadalupe Nettel's work very much and I think it's mostly because her characters feel real and sympathetic to me. The style is unpretentious and straightforward but almost every page there is a description that is spot on.

The first story has everything a short story needs: tension, an ominous feeling, not a word too many and then just half a sentence that puts everything upside down - it was chilling.

There are a couple more gems but also one or two that were not as well executed as that perfect first one.

Overall it is a slight work with just 8 stories, but well worth giving a try - it made me want to go back to reading more short stories.

[Karyn M · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 / From sliding doors to what-if moments, and longings for belonging, both real and surreal, The Accidentals: Stories is a haunting collection of 8 individual short stories of people seeking connection in their worlds.

Intimacies and family secrets are revealed when something out of the ordinary occurs. It is truly a wonderful collection and I can say that I enjoyed them all.

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are” - Anaïs Nin

IMPRINTING
THE FELLOWSHIP OF ORPHANS
PLAYING WITH FIRE
THE PINK DOOR
A FOREST UNDER THE EARTH
LIFE ELSEWHERE
THE ACCIDENTALS
THE TORPOR

Below are a few of my favourites

“The reasons you can fall into disgrace with your own relatives are strange, so very strange. Over the years I have observed all kinds of cases and I’ve come to believe that they are hardly ever down to questions of morality or principles, but rather to internal betrayals. Perhaps invisible to outsiders eyes, but unforgivable to the clan to whom they belong, or at least to certain members.”

“Rarely do we decide how we should act based on the present, and much less on the intuition of the moment. We do it based on the good or bad experiences that we have had before, and on the prejudices of our reality that we form as a consequence of these.”

“The roots,” he stressed, his tone serious. “that part hidden beneath the soil that nobody thinks about and that nobody wants to see, that’s the part that sustains us all.”

“As a trained actor I could feign the conformity my neighbours had embraced, but I couldn’t stop asking myself in which year or at what exit I had gotten off the highway that would have lead to my destiny. Or conversely which corner I should have turned to not end up on this avenue that lead towards a frustrated suburb of one’s forties.”

Marked up to 5 ⭐️

4.5 ⭐️ Audiobook read by Grecia Almada, Silvana Kane & Julian Franco

[Luís Queijo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uma coletânea de contos acerca, na minha opinião, de realidades alternativas imaginadas, sonhadas ou vividas pelos personagens, torna Guadalupe Nettel numa agradável surpresa. Ainda que alguns contos pudessem ser melhor explorados (pelo menos é a sensação com que fico), manterei esta autora “debaixo de olho”.
Efectivamente, surgiu na América Latina uma geração de autoras prolífica em narrativas fantásticas/surreais que muito me agrada.
A ler, definitivamente.

[meliverse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guadalupe Nettel’in gerilim dolu bu öykülerinde karşımıza çıkan bir izlek varsa, o da “sorunlu aile dinamikleri”dir. “Benzersiz Kızım” romanı ve “Yoldan Çıkanlar” kitabındaki bazı öyküler bu anlamda birbiriyle sürekli diyalog halinde. Özellikle “Ateşle Oyun” ve “Yetim Kardeşliği”, “Benzersiz Kızım”dan fırlamış öyküler gibilerdi. Örneğin, rüya sahnesindeki su baskını, BK’da geçen benzer bir olayı anımsatıyor. Yazar bu oyunbazlıklarla okurlarına bilinçli bir dejavu yaşatmak istiyor sanki. :) Ayrıca karakterlerine verdiği Laura ismi de bir tür imza olabilir mi? Her yerde Laura var/Yerlerde Lauralar/Kimin bu Lauralar/Bilemiyorum… Ehu ehe.

Neyse, favorilerim hoş anlamıyla “La Impronta”, WeNeedtoTalkAboutKevin’i anımsatan “Ateşle Oyun” ve sembolüyle tebessüm ettiren, konusuyla iç acıtan “Yoldan Çıkanlar” oldu. Bazı öyküler hayata şükürler için malzeme olur, hatta abartmıyorum sakız diye çiğnenir. Nettel hanfeninin dertleri derya, ben mayomu ve gözlüklerimi hazırladım, yenilerine dalmaya gidiyorum.

“La Impronta” öyküsündeki genç kadın geçmişteki bir bağın peşine düşerek iz sürmeye çalışıyor. Fotoğraflar, sessizlikler ve akrabaları arasında dolaşıyor. Bu öykü Blow-Up ve The Best Intentions ile beraber düşünüldüğünde çok daha güçlü bir etki bırakıyor.

“Ateşle Oyun”daki annenin “en azından içimizden birinin ölçülü bir mizacı var” diyerek küçük oğlu Lucas’la gurur duyması, bi nevi doğurduğunu tanıyamaması ve anne-çocuk arasındaki sadakatin adaletsizliği üzerine düşündürüyor.

“Yoldan Çıkanlar”ı okurken bir anda fonda Lara Di Lara’nın “Albatros” şarkısı belirdi. Şarkının hikâyesini bir konserinde anlatmıştı, tee orada beslediğim albatros sempatim devleşti. LDL bir belgeselde, tepenin üzerinde eşini bekleyen dişi bir albatros görür. Diğer kuşların eşleri gelip giderken o sabırla bekler, kıskanır, umutla gözlerini uzaklara diker. Sonunda kızımızın eşi gelir, buluşurlar ve birlikte dans ederek uçarlar. Sonra şarkı doğar. Ne hoş! (giggling) Albatros, yerde sakar ama gökte görkemlidir. Tıpkı Nettel’in bu öyküdeki karakterleri gibi: Normlara uymayan, dışlanan ama kendi iç dünyasında olağanüstü bir derinliğe sahip olan insanlar. “Yoldan Çıkanlar” aslında bu özgür uçuşun temsilcileri. Kitabın kapağındaki noktalar ve ikinci noktada beliren kuş (muhtemelen bir albatros?), bu özgürlük arzusunu çağrıştırıyor.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75. In this short collection, the characters at the center of these stories are often experiencing a change or an incident that brings about long-lasting consequences or at the least, causes the characters to reflect differently on the lives they’ve lived. Some of these experiences are drastic—a man eats a sweet that takes him and his wife back in time—and some are less so—a grown orphan reports the location of a “missing” man to his mother and learns that having parents is not synonymous with a happy life.

Symbolizing these characters and their altered life paths is the lost albatross that makes an appearance in a later story. Away from its home, it fights against the odds, as these characters do, to get back to what is familiar and known but in most cases, this former existence is no longer possible.

A solid collection, if a little unexciting. Nettel’s prose is deceptively simple and evocative, but I think I prefer her long-form storytelling where there’s room to dig deep into examining the interiority of her character’s minds.

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Accidentals is a beautifully written collection of eight short stories linked thematically. The title refers to the ornithological term for albatrosses that stray too far from home and lose their bearings. I particularly enjoyed the first story, "Imprinting," about a woman discovering an unexpected connection with an estranged uncle, "The Pink Door," which features a mysterious door that offers the chance to rewrite one's life, and "The Torpor," set in a dystopian world where sleep is preferable to waking. Several of these stories were obviously written with our recent global pandemic in mind. Recurring themes are obsession, disruption, loneliness, and memory. Characters often find that obtaining what they desire leads to unexpected consequences. Each story conveys a sense of disquiet or disorientation. Recommended to readers who enjoy short story collections – this one is excellent. I read the English translation by Rosalind Harvey from the original Spanish.