Status Updates From Cape Fever

“I see the marvel now, that we, who have been ripped to pieces so many times over, who have known such darkness, can still spin and sew lives of such brightness, make music that fills the streets, sing prayers that ring out over the enter city; that we find ways to say over and over, We are here! We are here!”

Men from war go into asylum with ability to speak and move and then leave “very obedient or remain here without speech or mobility”

“Beginnings are sacred, a small glow in a dark room, the breath before the verse.”

“Gossip and fire are the same. A pair. Because they get faster and stronger as they go.”

I’d recommend this book to anyone who likes Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Shirley Jackson, Isabela Livino’s An Immaculate Deception, and the 2001 horror film The Others

“She’s made us one and, in doing so, made me nothing.”

Mrs. H’s plot & betrayal

“Something that lived once can stay living: trees milled into paper, a bird’s feather made into a quill, sheep’s hair woven into wool. Things go on, even in death.”

“I marvel that she can so easily show me her back when the kitchen is full of knives.”

Soraya begins to have violent fantasies about Mrs. Hattingh after she continues to postpone her visits home

“Those who have been through the war, it is harder for them to find quiet…the guns still ring in their ears…”

Mothers grieving their sons killed in the war hold a seance at Mrs. Hattingh’s

“I understand in this moment that every woman, rich or poor, madam or maid, dreams of escape.”

Woman deemed mad tied to a pole in the district. Her family says if she’s not tied up she’d be running into danger. Argue that it’s better to tie her up this way than to confine her to a room

Soroya says this woman “didn’t bother waiting for death to become a Gray Woman.”

“…if you look carefully, you’ll see the natives of this land, still holding on—nails torn and bloody from holding on.”

“I realize then that the true wonder of these people is this: they are perfectly at ease with doing the wrong thing for centuries and then expect congratulations for doing the right thing for a moment.”

“Mad luck…that’s what surviving a war is, mad luck.”