The Mutations

"A feisty first novel . . . Comensal’s brisk, if at times diffusive, storytelling—in a translation by Charlotte Whittle that conveys both his blunt and sharp humor—coheres around the question of how a person (as well as his family members, friends and colleagues) deals with the felt and future consequences of sudden dire news . . . the funny, messy unexpectedness of life, death and potty-mouthed pet birds."—Randy Boyagoda, The New York Times

"[A] caustic, pitch-black comic debut."—Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

"[A] promising, frustrating, and ultimately moving debut. It’s a novel brightly alert to the conflict between the storyteller’s imperatives and the raw facts of disease."—Garth Risk Hallberg, Air Mail

"No contemporary Mexican novel has impressed me as much as Jorge Comensal's The Mutations. Barely exceeding 200 pages, this debut novel is both hilarious and funereal, a clinical history turned portrait of death."—Christopher Domínguez Michael, El Universal

"The Mutations is a wonderful novel, as tragic as it is comic, as classical as it is contemporary, and above all impossible to forget. After reading it, you'll wish that there were many more novels by Jorge Comensal ready for you to enjoy—but since this is his first, we'll just have to wait patiently till his next brilliant book is done."—Alejandro Zambra, author of Multiple Choice

"Jorge Comensal's The Mutations oscillates masterfully between comedy and tragedy, gathering up in its pages a stupendous panoply of characters before whom the reader is never sure whether to smile in sympathy or pity."—Fernando Aramburu, author of Homeland

"Through the story of an illness and an exploration of the fear of death, Jorge Comensal has created a world both absurd and hilarious, yet one that also touches on our darkest emotions. The Mutations is one of the greatest Latin American novels of recent years."—Daniel Saldaña París, author of Among Strange Victims

"The Mutations is a speculative exercise, implacable as cancer itself, on the limits of compassion. An uncompromising inquiry that tries to answer a sinister, almost eschatological question: What to do when faced with the news of an incurable disease?"—Juan Pablo Villalobos, author of I'll Sell You a Dog

"Quietly powerful . . . An assured debut by a writer from whom readers will want to hear more, and soon."—Kirkus Reviews

"Effortlessly elevating his tale to the rarefied heights of Flaubert, Tolstoy, and Ravel only to plunge the bawdy depths of the rawest profanity while peppering his narration with erudite discussions of the mysteries of genetics, Comensal has written a fearlessly irreverent and unexpectedly deep novel about a family’s blundering with the most atavistic of challenges."—Sara Martinez, Booklist

"Punchy . . . The novel gets its comic charge from blunt and colorful descriptions of emotional situations that in other fiction would dictate long and evocative passages. Sidestepping sentimentality and elaborate emotional expression, Comensal brings comic compassion to his treatment of contemporary neuroses."—Publishers Weekly