Pilar Adón’s “Of Beasts and Fowls” [Excerpt]

Released today, Of Beasts and Fowls by Pilar Adón & Katie Whittemore is one of the most bewitching books we’ve released in a while. It’s a book about Coro, an artist who has lost her sister and is “out of sorts,” who goes for a drive, gets lost, and ends up at a place called Bethany where she meets a number of women living together, wearing the same outfits, and speaking in odd, elliptical ways . . .

It’s a book that Publishers Weekly praised, stating “the novel’s dream logic is as intoxicating as the secluded setting. Readers will eagerly turn the pages of this beguiling literary thriller.” And none other than Mircea Cǎrtǎrescu claimed Of Beasts and Fowls is “the most haunting [novel] I have read in years.”

To celebrate this release (the first of two Adón books we’re doing), we’re offering a 30% discount via our website for the rest of the month. (No checkout code required, U.S. purchases only.)

And to entice you further into this witchy, captivating novel, below you’ll find an excerpt from when Coro arrives at Bethany and has her first interaction with it’s inhabitants.

Also: Sign up for the Three Percent Substack for more insights into how this book came to be, how it’s being reviewed, and other news from Open Letter. (And an easily accessible way to listen to this conversation with Pilar.)

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She’d put a cotton jacket on over her T-shirt, foregoing the summer raincoat she kept in the backseat. If she had to sleep in the car, she would use it as a blanket.

Once she had a handle on the scene—the black fence and the vegetation that grew up around it, the stone walls bordering the lane—she zipped up her jacket and switched on the overhead light. From her purse, she took out a handkerchief embroidered with the letter C and her sketchbook. Maybe there was a security camera on the fence, pointing down at her. Her fixed image at the center of a monitor. Wide-eyed. She was going to write that she needed help on a piece of paper and put it on the windshield, in case somebody, somewhere, could read it. And she was going to draw using the dashboard for support. It was the only thing that would calm her right then, while she got used to the idea that this thing was happening to her. She had actually gotten lost. Her fingers were cold, but she opened the sketchbook and leaned on the dashboard. That’s when she saw that someone was approaching the gate with a flashlight.

“What are you doing here?” The stranger addressed her with the formal you.

She found it odd that a stranger would ask her the exactly same thing she’d been asking herself.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

She rolled down the window.

“I’m lost,” she said.

“What are you looking for? Are you looking for something?”

“I’m running out of gas. I need to know if there’s a gas station somewhere nearby.”

“Are you wanting a house? What do you want? To rent or buy?”

She heard.

“I’m lost. Can you help me?”

“People love coming around here. They’re attracted to the scenery.”

Coro put the handkerchief in her purse and got out of the car.

The woman was opening the gate.

“I just need to turn around and get back to the main highway, but I can’t move with all those planks on the ground. And I’m not sure if I have enough gas. Do you know if nearby . . .”

“It’s not easy to get here. Where do you live?”

The woman drew closer and pointed the flashlight right at her face. She shut her eyes.

“Don’t do that. Please.”

“You’re not from around here.”

She wasn’t going to repeat that she was lost.

“There’s nothing for sale in the area. It’s even worse the closer you get to the mountain. You have to turn around, go back to the flatlands. There are more houses there. More properties.”

“You’re mistaken. I don’t want to buy anything.”

“Then why are you here?”

Coro looked inside the car, still illuminated by the overhead light. Her purse. Her things.

“I’m running out of gas.”

“You’ve said that already.”

For a second, she thought the best thing would be to be clutching the steering wheel again. To put a piece of gum or candy in her mouth. Her breath probably stank.

“Do you have a car? Maybe we could take some gas from your tank and put it in mine. I’ve seen it done, you suck it through a tube.”

The woman shined the flashlight in her face again.

“What’s your name? What’s your surname? I’m not bringing a stranger to my house.”

“I just need a little gas.”

“Have you come alone?”

The woman inspected the inside of the car, the backseat, and asked again what her name was and if she had come there alone.

“I better go. I’ll try to turn around.”

“I think it’s reasonable to want to know the name of the person who has just plunked herself down on my doorstep at this time of night.”

“It wasn’t intentional. I’m telling you.”

She got into the car. The flashlight was right back in her eyes again.

“Come on. Come with me. We’re going to try this tube thing. We have two cars down below.”

The woman said to follow her.

“I don’t want to bother anyone.”

The woman would go on foot and Coro would follow, behind the wheel. That’s what she proposed.

“It’s downhill. It’s fine.”

“Listen . . . Why don’t you bring your car up here?”

“I’m telling you, it’s downhill.”

“And if we don’t know how to transfer the fuel between tanks? Then I won’t be able to get back up.”

“You want gas, don’t you?”

She thought for a second.

“Yes.”

“Well, come on.”

She started the car.

Very slowly, she began to follow the woman, staring at the bright spot of the flashlight leading the way, pointed at the ground. Down a dirt lane toward a house that emerged on the left after several minutes, and which appeared covered in the leaves or branches of several trees. Facing a potholed slope and enveloped in a darkness she wouldn’t know how to get out of.

The woman motioned for her to go even slower.

“Are you hungry?” she asked, coming over to the window.

“I just need a little gas. You wouldn’t have a can, would you?”

“You’re going to have to get out of there.”

At that point in the night, she was exhausted. She only just realized she had been breathing through her mouth for some time.

Waving her arms, the woman indicated where she should park, under a tree, where there were two other cars. Coro sighed and tried to calm herself. That woman was going to lend her a hand. She really was going to help her.

“Do you like the house? They say it was built by a single man.”

Just then, the lights came on in the first-floor windows and someone turned on a fluorescent outdoor bulb that completely illuminated the front of the house with an extraordinary white light.

“Some think all the lights should be left on, to discourage burglars. But I don’t know. Sometimes I think it’s better if they don’t know we’re here.”

Coro couldn’t see her face because the woman had positioned herself against the light. She could see, however, that another woman was coming out of the house, headed in their direction, carrying something. Five or six dogs also appeared, circling Coro and sniffing her.

“You’re not afraid of dogs, are you?”

She shook her head.

“Don’t be scared.”

“I’m not scared.”

The vagueness of the sky against the excessive light from the fluorescent bulb acted almost like a cupola. The place looked like a stage surrounded by trees.

“I’ve just taken it off the fire. Be careful.” The second woman handed Coro a mug, and she accepted it. It was scalding. It scorched her fingers. Her first impulse was to drop it. But she contained herself.

“Careful.”

“Shit!” she exclaimed.

The woman who gave her the mug made no expression whatsoever.

“Watch that mouth,” said the other.

“It’s boiling.”

She looked around for somewhere to set it down. In the company of those two women who watched her.

In an exercise of maximum self-control, after what seemed like hours, she set the mug on the hood of her car, spilling some of the liquid.

“Bring it here. I’ll hold it for you.”

“It’s boiling.”

“I warned you.”

“Nobody could drink that.”

“I warned you. We’ll wait until it cools.”

A nozzle hung from the side of the house, lit by the fluorescent bulb, fastened to the wall by a pipe and dripping a few centimeters from the bottom of a stone basin.

“Can I get some water?” she asked.

“It doesn’t work. Just drips.”

Coro brought her hands to mouth with the sensation that they were on fire. She went to the faucet and tried to turn it, but it was stuck.

“It doesn’t turn on or off. We told you.”

She brought her hands to her mouth again. They would be covered in blisters. She let the drops from the faucet wet her skin. She had hurt herself in the attempt to turn the lever and now her fingers shook.

A hoe and a rake were propped against the wall, beside the basin. And a wheelbarrow. The two women approached in silence, and when she turned around, she found them right behind her, fully illuminated by the fluorescent bulb. One had incredibly light brown eyes, almost golden, and the pair looked older now than she’d first imagined. They were slim and limber. They wore their hair pulled back and the same clothes, with identical boots. The same fabric for a pair of dresses equally threadbare and equally wrinkled. The woman who’d come from inside had put on a shawl.

Over their heads an immense tree grew. Carob, they told her.

“Can we try for the gas?” she asked.

“Wouldn’t you prefer to come inside? Sit down and have a drink?”

“You’re not going to help me?”

“We are helping you.”

Coro looked at the dogs still circling her. Coming and going. Peeing on the flowerpots. At the base of the tree hugging the trunk, ringing it, a row of bowls, cups, and tin cans were tied together with string and containing water and scraps.

“For the cats.”

“They get on well with the dogs.”

Coro couldn’t care less whether or not they got on. Whether they ripped each other apart or ate each other up. Whether they tore out their eyes or chewed off hunks of flesh.

“What’s wrong? You’re not afraid of us, are you? You’re the one who turned up at our gate.”

“You made me drive down here.”

“If you’re looking for property, it’s better to see it during the day. The land. The lake.”

“I told you, I’m lost.”

“Right, but no one gets lost around here.”

“Do you think the broth will have cooled by now?” the first woman asked the second.

“Not broth, milk.”

“Do you like milk? Everyone likes milk, don’t they?”

“What’s your name?”

She answered and the women laughed.

“Coro? What kind of name is that? Where are you from?”

They told her the name didn’t exist and she thought that she should get back in the car. She always had that option. That blessed option. Only then would she be calmer. Getting into the car and locking the doors. Staying inside.

“You don’t want to come in?”

The two women watched her.

“You’re obviously tired.”

“Here. Drink.”

They handed her the mug again. Firmly. Coro brought it indecisively to her lips, but she drank. All of it. Asking herself how she could be there. How had she been able to leave her phone at home. What was happening to her.

It was still hot.

“Better? You feel better, don’t you?”

Did she feel better?

“Come on, relax a bit.”

“Do you want to come in?”

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Of Beasts and Fowls by Pilar Adón & Katie Whittemore is available from Open Letter (30% off before 12/1/24), Bookshop.org, and better bookstores everywhere!