CONEY ISLAND SIREN

A woman struggles with a violent relationship that is foreshadowed by a mysterious, century-old diary in this thriller by the author of Nights of Indigo Blue (2016).

When Maggie Fuentes, a nurse at a Brooklyn hospital who lives on Coney Island, tries to break up with her boyfriend, Frank Ramirez—a publicly charming, privately abusive cop—the result is a tirade capped by a blow to her head that temporarily knocks her out. In the aftermath, she is plagued by pounding headaches, dizziness, and a growing sense of disorientation. At work, she is saddled with an emotionally unsettling patient who is semiconscious after attempting suicide. Meanwhile, Frank continues his menacing control, mixing protestations of love with callous insults and threats that leave her too frightened to seek legal protection. A few bright spots ease Maggie’s despondency without solving her problems. One is a handsome intern whose interest culminates in torrid trysts but no substantial relationship. Then there are the drugs, including painkillers, that Maggie swipes from patients; marijuana; and black-tar heroin, which makes her so mellow after she smokes it that she manages to fall back in love with Frank. Her self-medication helps her cope but also deepens her loss of autonomy. Maggie’s predicament is paralleled by the entries in a diary she finds at a flea market, written by a servant girl beginning in 1903. Like Maggie, Ellen is trapped by brutal, domineering men and seeks solace in gazing at the moon over the Coney Island beach until a friendship with a fortuneteller prompts her to try to take back her life. As Maggie starts having hallucinations, her identification with Ellen grows so strong that she feels the servant’s spirit entering her and transporting her back in time to a masked ball.

Varela’s haunting tale is in part a superbly realistic evocation of Maggie’s downward spiral that turns darkly claustrophobic as her grip on reality loosens. The hospital scenes are well observed and full of absorbing procedural detail. The rendering of Maggie’s relationship with Frank is vivid and appalling as she negotiates the minefield of his hair-trigger temper and paranoid—sometimes not so paranoid—jealousies. (At one point, he carefully sniffs her to detect evidence of a betrayal, then administers a beating.) The author’s psychologically shrewd prose—“While I was relieved that I hadn’t heard from him,” Maggie muses of Frank, “I was also somewhat annoyed. I hated when he ignored me”—conveys a complex, nuanced portrait of domestic violence. Frank is monstrous but has his own history of childhood abuse. Maggie makes dangerous compromises, finding his domination reassuring and even arousing when it doesn’t terrify her. The novel’s supernatural elements are less compelling. Ellen’s diaristic narrative is threadbare and doesn’t add much to Maggie’s experiences. In addition, Maggie’s visions feel out of place as they become more psychedelic. (“He cut the air around me and a glistening dark-blue snake slithered out of my body,” Maggie observes during an encounter with the Archangel Michael.) There are third-act problems and a misfiring climax as the tale’s spiritual high point weakens the impact of Maggie’s real-world travails. Still, Varela’s portrayal of Maggie’s ordeal is a tour de force in its depiction of a battered woman struggling to recover her mind and soul.

An engrossing exploration of an intimate horror.