Infinite Books

It’s 2020 and the pandemic time. Florence Baum, aka Florida, and Diana Dios Sandoval – Dios – are on early release from a woman’s prison in Arizona and going to LA. Dios says, “The world is on pause. (…) But we aren’t. We are on the move. (…) The world isn’t paying attention to us. We can do what we want. This is our time.”

“Sing Her Down” feels like an apocalyptic place with two young women moving through the landscape of cheap motels, homeless tent sites by Los Angeles’s freeways, and empty, deserted bars. It’s hot, with the scorching sun and empty streets, where “discarded masks and gloves swirl like tumbleweed.” The women are not friends, and they don’t travel together – instead, Dios follows Florida on the mission to make her accept who she is – a woman embracing violence, someone who progresses from minor misdemeanors to crime, not because falling under the influence of others, especially “bad men,” but because of her inclination. Dios is already a murderer, and she wants to “sing Florida down.” It manifests in her singing narcocorridos (Mexican drug ballad songs) which adds to the weird, hypnotic atmosphere of their inescapable destiny. Another woman, Detective Lobos, follows them, aware that Florida is a magnet and Dios is magnetized and that she’ll get Florida by following Dios. The end becomes a classic, western-style showdown, immortalized in a mural.

Ivy Pochoda decided to write it after being challenged by herself and her friend to write a female version of “Blood Meridian.” Violent and poetic, it shows women as violent creatures, and the violence is not easily explained. It’s not born of past traumatic experiences as Florida and Dios are relatively educated and intelligent, and their past doesn’t justify such extreme behavior. To her credit, Florida tries to escape Dios and start a new life, returning to her mother’s house, but Dios is a skillful predator, and Florida is the willing prey.

This book is undoubtedly engaging, a mixture of a psychological thriller, a modern Western, and an apocalyptic showcase of the pandemic decline. It’s also highly stylized, similar to a ballad, somehow idealizing the main characters and making them suburban legends. In the tradition of Thelma and Louise, but much more determined and violent, Florida and Dios display the same degree of violence as it’s associated with men, if not worse. It’s the road novel, but the road leads directly to self-destruction.

SING HER DOWN by Ivy Pochoda, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, MCD 2023