He soon realizes the boys are making him drive to the Witch’s house. Later, Luismi asks Munra to drive him and his friend Brando somewhere. Thinking the object has something to do with witchcraft, Munra tells him to burn it. One morning Munra finds Luismi covered in mud, and sees he has dug something up. When the hospital finds out Norma is only 13, Luismi is banned from seeing her, as he is in his twenties. One night when what Munra thought was just Norma’s period leads to too much blood loss, he has to drive Luismi and Norma to the hospital. Luismi’s girlfriend, Norma, also lives at the house. Because Chabela is a sex worker, Munra assumes she is out partying. He also lives with his wife, Chabela, but she has been missing for days. The novel then follows Munra, a man with a leg deformity, who lives with his drug-addicted stepson, Luismi. Luismi is arrested, and when Doña Tina finds out, she has a fit and dies. When Yesenia sees Luismi and another man leave the Witch’s house carrying a body, she tells the police. Luismi leaves to go live with his mother. When she tells Doña Tina, she punishes Yesenia by shaving her head. One night, Yesenia sneaks out to catch Luismi participating in an orgy at the Witch’s house. When Luismi misbehaves, it is Yesenia who is beaten by their grandmother, Doña Tina. As the eldest in her family, Yesenia is responsible for taking care of her younger siblings and cousins. The novel begins following a young girl named Yesenia, who often butts heads with her cousin, Luismi. The Witch not only becomes known for her supposed curses and spells, but also for the fact that she often pays men for sexual favors. In 1978, there is a landslide that kills the Witch’s mother from then on, the Witch forever wears a black veil. No one knows who the Witch’s father is, and some people speculate she is the child of the devil. The narrator tells the Witch’s origin story, beginning with her mother, who is suspected to have killed her husband for his wealth. The body is identified as a woman known only as the Witch, and a murder investigation ensues. The third person narrator observes the town as a dead body is discovered in the local river. The novel takes place in present day Mexico, in a small and rural town called La Matosa.

New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2020. The following version of this book was used to create this guide: Melchor, Fernanda.

Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor