Don't Leave Her Alone

By: Desirée de Fez, Lizzie Davis - translator

"Full of tenderness and delirium, moving between suburban realism and fairy tale." —Mariana Enríquez

An alternative Nightbitch set in Barcelona for fans of Fever Dream, following three mothers who are linked by the tentacles that live inside of them.

Alba has always clung to her mother Carmen: to run errands, or simply validate every anxiety she’s had. Yet, nothing can silence the fears Alba refuses to confront. They simmer, then burst, but never quite erupt, and each time Carmen is by her side. Meanwhile, Alba’s sister Diana struggles herself, balancing the demands of motherhood and work, but cannot remember the last time Carmen tended to her.

Two days before Christmas, Alba drags Carmen to the mall. There, she runs into "the widows." The pair approach Alba, put an evil eye on her. Her nose starts to bleed, which is how Alba knows. Then, on Christmas Eve, Alba disappears. And Diana and Carmen collapse from the pain in their bellies, where a deep gash splits their purging stomachs. As the tensions the three women have long held in explode, they're finally forced to confront the terror that connects them.

Haunting, cinematic, and strikingly visceral, Don't Leave Her Alone is an incisive exploration of motherhood through a surreal "awakening" that interrogates women's struggle for autonomy and identity, and ultimately forces the question: what does it take to finally be able to break free?

Critic reviews

"Being mothers and being daughters can feel like body horror, and that is what Desiree de Fez’s brilliant debut novel does: it turns bonds of intense love into torn bodies, glitter, and anxiety. Don’t Leave Her Alone is full of tenderness and delirium, moving between suburban realism and fairy tale." —Mariana Enriquez, International Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed

"Desirée de Fez descends into the dark core of family and memory to examine the fears that shape our identity. With brave, lucid writing—born of a compulsive need to transform anguish into understanding—she reveals horror, far from being purely destructive, as an extreme and radiant form of love for others and for ourselves. Not only is it an extraordinary novel; I can’t remember having read anything quite like it." —J.A. Bayona, award-winning film director of The Society of the Snow and A Monster Calls