Our Share of Night is a political horror story that is rather timely in its presentation of cults and allegiance to rituals and the threat of darkness and the possibility of actually repeating the mistakes of the past instead of learning to never allow them to happen again. Into the Argentina of the 20th century period when it was held in the tight-fisted grip of a despotism which enjoyed the backing of the American government and the years which followed is situated a cult known as the Order presided over by three wealthy, powerful, and influential families. A member of this cult named Juan is blessed with the ability to perform a sacred ceremony known as the Ritual. It is through the Ritual that Juan becomes a medium through which is channeled a force know as the Darkness. The Ritual must be performed at the Place of Power in order for it to work and is the only such place. Or so the members of the Order believe. As is common with such secretive and ritualistic societies, the Order indulges in the child sacrifices and the goal of eternal life.
The narrative trek which is to be found in what is sometimes an unwieldy and often loosely-structured book of 600 pages follows the story of Juan as he is beginning to come to the end of his ability to call for the Darkness. Performing the Ritual is no easy task and it has taken its toll upon his body and soul. Continuing in his role will inevitably lead him to death or insanity and, most likely, death by insanity. The solution for the Order seems tailor-made: Juan has a son named Gaspar who has exhibited signs of being just as powerful a medium as his father.
Added to the mix of dramatic tension is the suspicious death of Juan’s wife and Gaspar’s mother. Later on another twisty element shows up when Gaspar and friends discover there actually is another Place of Power which they called the Other Place. All of this is tied up in the revelation that Juan has always hated his role as medium and desperately wants to make sure that Gaspar can avoid being dragged into the same horrific condition in which he has lived. It is the manner in which Juan goes about trying to save his son that comprises the bulk of the story.
In a book that overflows with visceral scenes of violence and horror perpetrated in the name of the Order, the most appalling violence for most readers will likely be that perpetrated by Juan upon his son. Juan’s method for protecting Gaspar from repeating his own fate can very easily be mistaken for madness. Part of the logic at work for Juan is trying to convince him that all the horrors he witnesses as a result of the Order’s relentless pursuit of power and dark knowledge is merely delusions taking place only inside his head and not in realty. He must keep up this fiction while at the same time being a major player in bringing about the horrors to which Gaspar bears witness. Ultimately, the message of the book becomes clear as Juan—in the name of protecting his son—is revealed to be as cold and calculating and abusive and manipulative as not just the leaders of the Order but the right-wing dictator who ruled over Argentina with a brutal iron fist he called benevolence.
The backdrop of Argentina’s volatile political history in the previous century is essential to fully appreciating why the novel is often referred to as a horror story. Juan’s forced complicity, the way in which his actions as accomplice to bringing on the Darkness destroys him, and the extreme lengths to which he feels he must go in order to protect history from repeating with his son all connect metaphorically to that history. Even the structure and length of the novel is incorporated into this metaphorical retelling of history as the narrative is told in a digressive and meandering way through multiple perspectives.
