If you’re looking for a story in the same vein as Princess Mononoke but with giggling, psychic tortoises, horrifically cruel antagonists, and a uniquely developed queer love story, then look no further. 

If you want that story to play as a movie in your mind where you can intimately picture every shot, stunt, and effect, where the cinematography is cunning and evocative, where the tale is so immersive that you forget which world you’re sitting in, then this is the story for you.

“Before you arrive, 

You remember you lola, smoking. You remember the smell of her dried tobacco, like hay after a storm. The soft crinkle of the rolling paper. The zip of the matchstick, which she’d sometimes strike against the lizard-rough skin of her leg, to impress you. You remember the ritual of it. Her mouth was too dry to lick the paper shut so she had you do it, the twiggy pieces of tobacco sticking to your tongue like bugs’ legs as you wetted the edges. She told you it was an exchange. Your spit for her stories.”

The first thing to note about this story is that it pulls no punches with its writing. The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez is told in both first and second person and almost never explicitly tells you who is narrating at what time. Fluid switching between mysterious narrators like this can be a very hard thing to pull off, but after the first two or three pages it’s easy to slip into the time and place being described and this unusual style of writing becomes second nature to read. 

The second thing you’ll notice about this book is that it’s reminiscent of films like The Fall where the reader is guided through one story into another, then through that story into a third beyond that and from there a vast world is unfurled. The Spear Cuts Through Water is an epic, lyrical tale of an empire under the rule of a tyrannical emperor with three equally cruel sons. The source of their power is the god they have trapped beneath a mountain, but when the god is freed and she escapes their clutches with the unlikely help of a guilt-stricken soldier and a one-armed warrior, the empire begins to pry off the emperor’s vicious grip.

The first protagonist we are introduced to is a young boy being told a story by his lola (his grandmother) which spirits the boy to a dream theatre where the main story plays out. There are no chapters in this story, only the five acts of the play which are split into a series of much smaller beats. These beats are lines marked in bold and set apart from the rest of the prose, leaning emphasis on specific actions that expertly build drama and tension with every page. Also scattered throughout the text are lines highlighted in italics where the chorus speaks to the audience. This small act of suddenly switching to a different character’s point of view in the middle of a line and then back again without so much as taking a breath is hugely impactful and is a masterful way of adding world-building details while saturating the story with the unique atmosphere Jimenez effortlessly creates.

This is an adventure story through and through with truly hideous villains, unexpected animal companions, and twists, turns, and betrayal at every step. Our protagonists are reluctant heroes and both men of honour who are trying to make up for the sins of their past. The pace of the adventure rarely dips or plateaus and nor does the scale of horrific events that occur. If you can’t stomach on-page gore or cruelly malicious violence on an alarmingly regular basis, this book isn’t for you.

It should be noted that while this tale never directly discusses the trauma that occurs on and off page, the author showcases the natural consequences and aftermath of each event instead. None of the horrific acts ever feel gratuitous and this was a definite silver lining to dealing with the urge to bleach my eyeballs every so often.

“A giggle broke from the dark. 

‘You have a most loving son indeed, My Smiling Sun.’

Both father and son looked across the salon at the tortoise resting on the blankets in the corner. The prince looked away in revulsion, while behind the veils of sheer Induun fabric, the massive creature let loose its mad giggles, which filled the room like gas escaping from a cracked pipe.”

Our characters face conflict and obstacles at every turn while desperately clinging to their morals and any possibility for survival. The odds are stacked high from the very beginning and only get higher with every page. 

The relationship between our protagonists is the safety rail to cling to in this rollercoaster of emotion, even when they’re being a bit dim – but that’s when you have to remember that they’re (barely) adults carrying a world’s worth of trauma and hope in their little wagon. They’re just trying to work out where they fit in now that the world is blowing up in their faces.

There are no characters you can fully rely on to be the ‘good guys’ in this book and the ever-present threats that chase our protagonists through this world keep the tension so taut that it’s hard to read long swathes of this story at a time. It’s not an easy book to read, but it’s an undeniably rewarding one. 

This book is a masterpiece in the realm of storytelling, and I am frankly amazed that this is only Simon Jimenez’s second book. I highly recommend giving this book a try, even if it’s only to experience the utterly unique way that this story is told.

The paperback edition of The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez comes out on the 14th March 2024. Order your copy on Bookshop.org