Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes

In Tibetan mythology, the Dakini is a wild goddess of female fury, usually shown wearing a necklace of human skulls, holding a knife in one hand and a cup filled with menstrual blood in the other. If that sounds like your kind of girl, you'll discover a kindred spirit in Cigano, the rough-hewn, motorcycle-riding narrator of Narcisa, Jonathan Shaw's tale of addiction.

Title character Narcisa is a crack-smoking, teenage Brazilian prostitute who's often compared to that knife-wielding Tibetan deity. She's corroded by rape and abuse; a manipulative, mystical force bent on self-destruction. Even in a charged atmosphere of gritty Rio favelas and sticky tropical heat, she exerts a powerful negative gravitational pull. But she's not the book's only true addict. Cigano, an outsider with literary pretensions, is intoxicated by Narcisa. His obsessive drive to care for his wild lover, to excuse her excess in order to satisfy his lust, is the book's catalyst.

Legendary tattoo artist Shaw makes it clear this book is fiction, but his detailed writing suggests he's at least ridden shotgun for similar scenarios. Cigano, who fancies himself a badass free from societal bullshit and the "sheeple" he sees everywhere, gets philosophical about his pain. Loftily claiming no illusions and no pity, he's alternately drained and purified by Narcisa's suffering while perpetually supporting her prodigious crack habit. As the isolated lovers continue to hurt each other and relive arguments, the story drags at times. But there's a twisted pleasure in the novel's tunnel vision as the plot limps down a predestined road. Bleak and protracted, Narcisa is an unvarnished portrait of a co-dependent downward spiral.

—Patrick Sisson