“She was horrified by the traces of monstrosity in everyday life,” Agustina Bazterrica writes of a character in her new collection, NINETEEN CLAWS AND A BLACKBIRD: Stories (Scribner, 154 pp., paperback, $17.99), and it could be read as a unifying principle for all 20 stories. Moses’ translation from the Spanish captures the playful gruesomeness of the Argentine writer’s prose. Misogyny and its knock-on effects are an animating force throughout. In “Unamuno’s Boxes,” a woman suspects her cabdriver is a serial killer, tipped off by his perfectly manicured nails. Bazterrica takes big swings throughout, and while not every punch lands, these stories are fresh and unnerving.

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Persons: ” Agustina Bazterrica, Scribner, Moses ’, ”, who’s, ” Ada, “, sanguinely Locations: Argentine