Mario Bellatin's "Beauty Salon" is advertised as a novella, but it is, I think, more like a short story for two reasons. First, it can be read very quickly and without much thought. Second, the story is basic and very little happens in terms of character development.

In the story, the narrator becomes the caretaker for several people who are infected with an unknown plague. Most readers, including me, take the plague to be an extremely fast and virulent strain of AIDS. The narrator simply takes care of these people in his converted beauty salon but he too falls victim.

Although I did not particularly like Albert Camus' "The Plague," I was completely enamored with José Saramago's "Blindness." The publisher's comparison to these two works on the back cover do not fit, in my opinion. The simple plots might be similar, but "Beauty Salon" does not leave the reader with very much, unfortunately.

In the version translated by David Shook identified simply as Shook on the front cover, he says cryptically and rather ridiculously in his translator notes, "Reader, I have taken liberties." ( )

Mario Bellatin's novel (novella, really) provides a reading experience that simultaneously humanizes and distances his central character. The unnamed narrator who ran a successful beauty salon, turns his salon into a home for the dying when a plague hits his community. There are clear parallels to the AIDS epidemic: dying people abandoned by families or lovers, no hope of effective treatment, and "residents" who have long been conditioned to see themselves as a sort of fringe society—a strong decorative fringe that challenges expectations about masculinity.

Before the plague, the narrator would go out cruising in the evenings with other gay, male cross-dressers. They tended to spend their time in the darker streets, but their dress and their attitudes were brilliant.

Now that the narrator has created "the Mortuary," he goes out seldom, particularly after he realizes that he, too, is dying of the plague. Instead, he considers the deaths of those around him, the faster and slower courses the plague can take, the value of living longer when that also means longer suffering.

This is a book offers a meditation that one can easily read in a single sitting, at least in terms of its length. Embracing what one has read, coming to terms with it, takes significantly longer.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own. ( )

This was a good read, a story (?) that's to the point. I've yet to figure out the true meaning of the aquariums though. Not a page goes by that it's not mentioned. ( )

Some kind of plague is running through an unnamed city. The transvestite owner of a beauty salon has transformed her business into The Terminal, where she takes in men (and only men) who are close to death (and only those; if you look like you have too much life in you yet, she sends you away until you're closer to the end). She used to have several tanks of brightly-colored, exotic fish as decor; she's down to a handful of hearty guppies in a cloudy tank.

There's no character arc here, no big moment of growth and understanding. This is a novella more concerned with getting an accurate snapshot of the setting and main character than with developing anything and making the reader comfortable. It's a quick read (at 63 pages) but a long digestion; it's one that will gnaw on the corner of your brain for a while after reading it. ( )

En esta novela corta el narrador de la misma cuenta como convirtio su salon de belleza (decorado con enormes peceras con peces exoticos) en un 'moridero', un lugar donde pueden ir a morir aquellos afectados por un extrana enfermedad debilitante que esta infectando a mucha gente. Solo hombres son aceptados en el salon de belleza y alli aprenden a pasar sus ultimos dias y a morir. Un relato duro en el que el narrador se mantiene emocionalmente distante y muy frio. Una historia interesante y bien escrita. ( )