Media Reviews
Great fun are the jabs at academia, Mexico City and the dusty town where the action, or inaction, moves after Rodrigo meets Marcelo, a Spanish cretin with a Ph.D. in aesthetics. These flameless fl neurs humph and hump, personifying urban malaise. --New York Times Sunday Book Review
Full of odd twists and surprises. Among the high points are Salda a Par s' exasperated but affectionate paeans to 'the immense, beautiful city' that is Mexico's capital. Though a study of slothfulness and its discontents, a welcome book on which the author has clearly expended energy. --Kirkus
The English debut by the young and talented Daniel Salda a Paris, Among Strange Victims is the definitive millennial existentialist novel of Mexico City. --The Culture Trip
The novel takes some bizarre turns as Marcelo leads Rodrigo into experiments involving drugs, tequila, hypnosis and more, all in the name of transformation. If the young man's notion of radical change is to take part in his life rather than observe it from afar, he's off to a good start. --New York Times
Salda a Par s's first novel to be translated Stateside is a leisurely story of slacking off that's nicely conveyed in a sharp, cynical tone. . . . Read this messy, shaggy picaresque for its ample page-by-page pleasures, which include devilishly clever syntax, a charming tendency to digress, and satisfying flashes of Rodrigo and Marcelo getting their act together. --Publishers Weekly
Brief, brilliantly written, and kissed by a sense of the absurd....like a much lazier, Mexico City version of Dostoevsky's Underground Man. --Fresh Air
MacSweeney's brilliant English translation of this odd, Kafkaeque and conniving novel is not to be missed. --The Guardian
Partnership is important, says this young, slacker, thirtysomething Mexican writer, even if it's only with a hen in a vacant lot. --The Rumpus
It's a novel that sneaks up on you in the best possible way. --Vol. 1 Brooklyn
Daniel Salda a Par s's Among Strange Victims... is, despite the questions surrounding the Latin American canon, a natural successor in the Latin American oeuvre. Salda a Par s eases forward from the Crack and McOndo movements, yet still evokes the hues of Julio Cort zar's Hopscotch. But, perhaps most crucially, Among Strange Victims still wonders what this Latin American-ness could mean. --Full Stop
The real life absurdities surrounding Trump's visit are definitely stranger than the fictional absurdities Rodrigo faces, though I can't help but wonder if somehow these narratives are cosmically linked. Daniel Salda a Par s' pulse on the Mexican psyche feels that precise, that honest, that timely. --Ploughshares
The novel teases and revises questions about how to live a meaningful life with agency by turning them into a thought experiment that Saldana Par s handles with formal invention and a Millennial twist. --Words Without Borders
Daniel Salda a Paris' first novel to be translated into English is an expertly composed, leisurely read that sucks you in but never spits you out. . . . this book is a must-read. --Largehearted Boy
For all Salda a Par s' sharp wit, Among Strange Victims is about waking up to the world's brighter possibilities. --NPR
Although its stylized narrative can be an acquired taste, 'Among Strange Victims' is deceptively affecting. --Star Tribune
It's a novel that comes at you from odd angles, making a memorable impression as it goes. --Vol. 1 Brooklyn
In an easygoing, oddly entrancing style, Par s presents a meandering plot . . . but the events of the narrative pale in comparison to the surprising pleasure of the thoroughly offbeat prose. . . . Pari s has mastered the art of spinning an outlandish, entertaining tale. --Booklist
It is impossible to read Among Strange Victims without being charmed by its wit and disarmed by its fierce and mysterious languor. In this novel, Daniel Salda a Par s asks how one should cope with the impossible burden of living your own life--and gives a graceful riddle of an answer that will linger with you long after the book is done. --Alexandra Kleeman
Translator Christina MacSweeney has done an excellent job bringing the intelligent vitality of Paris's prose into English. . . What has happened to the life of the artist, Among Strange Victims asks. Why do we so often build critical distances between ourselves and our lives? And how can we bridge those gaps? Electric Literature
Salda a Par s is a Montreal-based poet, essayist, and novelist, born in Mexico City, and, as this darkly humorous and thoughtful novel -- both in the sense of being contemplative and packed full of an onrush of thoughts -- proves, is a welcome infusion of vitality into North American literature. --Bookslut .. . there is something uncannily Pitolean about this novel. And that is a very good thing. --Three Percent
Daniel Salda a Par s's Among Strange Victims, translated by Christina MacSweeney, immediately pulls the reader into its universe. It does so with such thorough and seamless skill that the reader becomes a victim of this strange, off-kilter world. --Cleaver Magazine
[Among Strange Victims is] an impressive work by a talented young writer. --Largehearted Boy
As I read [Among Strange Victims], I felt I was witnessing a great performance. It reminded me a little of young Mozart showing off at the emperor's golden harpsichord, giggling and improvising variations on Salieri's welcome march, startling all the wigged and powdered Viennese stiffs. And I sensed something desperate and inflamed in the writing too, as though the author assumed all along that nobody would ever read his book. That's probably what I like most about it--the cocky, indulgent, nihilistic virtuosity. --BOMB
Quirky and absurd, it's a funny, shambling look at the benefits (and drawbacks) of living life at your own lazy pace. --Men's Journal
Salda a Par s writes with a gifted and confident prose that is as much the star of this singular novel as its unforgettable characters and delighting plot. This young Mexican writer (and poet, too) is surely one to watch, and if Among Strange Victims is but a harbinger of what's to come, then Salda a Par s may well have a long, fruitful, and fantastic career ahead of himself. --Jeremy Garber
Critics have drawn comparisons between Par s's latest novel (his first to be translated in the United States) and the work of his blockbuster predecessor, Roberto Bola o. --Brooklyn Magazine
Daniel Salda a Par s, following in the tradition of di Lampedusa, shows that non-writers--that is to say, those who don't exclusively cultivate what's known as a literary life--are the ones who make the best books. --Mario Bellatin
I rewrote the first forty pages of Among Strange Victims several times over two years before finding the right tone for it. It started being a very serious, philosophical novel, but with each new version it became more and more humorous. --The Quarterly Conversation
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