The Dangers of Smoking in Bed

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness, child sexual abuse, graphic violence, sexual content, illness, and death.

Fear is a central motif throughout The Dangers of Smoking in Bed. It drives the narrative and also serves as a lens through which Enriquez explores reactions to the grotesque, taboo, and uncanny horrors that populate the collection’s stories. In these stories, characters face abstract threats, like poverty, trauma, and gender discrimination, rather than immediate physical dangers. In response, their fears become misplaced or dislocated, manifesting as anxiety and paranoia. 

For example, Josefina in “The Well” experiences intense, debilitating fear that seems to have no apparent source. Similarly, Julieta in “Rambla Triste” is gripped by a seemingly irrational fear of the neighborhood, sensing something dark beneath its gentrified surface. These fears are not rooted in conventional horror tropes but rather in the characters’ recognition that the world is not what it seems. This is also true of the children in “Kids Who Come Back” or the spirit impersonating Pinocchia’s brother in “Back When We Talked to the Dead.” Although these beings aren’t overtly harmful, they inspire terror in their victims due to their link to traumatic pasts.