The Dangers of Smoking in Bed

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

Many of the stories in The Dangers of Smoking in Bed center on an unwelcome past reasserting itself, often in unsettling or supernatural ways. Several characters attempt to suppress traumas, injustices, or wrongdoings, but they fail when the past resurfaces, often in the form of persistent ghosts. These ghosts are reminders that collective and personal traumas cannot stay buried.

The first story in the collection, “Angelita Unearthed,” exemplifies this theme when the narrator’s great aunt, who died as a baby, comes back to haunt her. When Angelita’s bones were dug up, the past was literally “unearthed,” and now the narrator has no choice but to live with it. The dead baby follows her around as a constant reminder that the past will not stay buried. Another story in the collection that features a ghost is “Back When We Talked to the Dead,” which focuses on people who were killed (or “were disappeared,” as the characters say) during Argentina’s ruthless military dictatorship. Once again, the presence of the ghost is a reminder of lingering trauma in the aftermath of these events. 

Notably, these ghostly characters rarely cause actual harm. The ghost children in “Rambla Triste” want the residents of El Raval to “suffer,” and they do so by trapping them in the neighborhood, but they stop short of physically hurting them. Rather, the ghosts create a constant reminder of the past, emphasizing the fear and trauma they experienced in their own lives and insisting that others remember it, as well. In “The Kids Who Come Back,” missing children, many of whom were kidnapped or fled abusive situations at home, start reappearing in parks across Buenos Aires. Many of them are known to be dead, while others are presumed dead. The children are quiet and polite; they do nothing to harm anyone, but it soon becomes clear something isn’t right about them. They begin to inspire an intense fear in their parents and the general public. The societal response, with the media and the public desperately maintaining a “selective silence,” highlights the tendency to ignore things that are ugly, uncomfortable, or difficult to explain. The story critiques this avoidance, illustrating how repression prevents meaningful solutions.

These short stories also explore the far-reaching effects of collective traumas, showing that even those not directly responsible are affected. In “The Kids Who Come Back” and “Rambla Triste,” characters experience the residual effects of trauma and gentrification through the presence of the ghosts and the fear they inspire. This indicates that societal violence impacts everyone and even haunts the present.