Author: Isabel-Clara Simó Monllor
- Children/Young
- Labutxaca
- ISBN: 9788416600564
- Release Date: 01-13-2016
-Reviewed by: Vicenç Tuset
Àlex, a young scholar from Barcelona, visits New York to attend a conference on Classical Studies. But things take an unexpected turn when he meets a young photographer named Jonàs, also Catalan, and suddenly fall in love with him. Jonàs, sort of a boho, lives in a very small apartment in Manhattan surrounded by a gallery of social outcast characters like Janet (a bartender who acts half as his mother and half as his lover), Janet’s senile mother (who sometimes runs away and sleeps in Jonàs’ bed) or Fanny, a young prostitute rescued from the streets by the photographer himself.
Until his encounter with Jonàs, Àlex was unaware of his own homosexuality, so their relationship is fundamentally a source of discoveries and self-knowledge for the young protagonist, which finds himself living under circumstances far more complicated from those of his quiet life in Barcelona. When his tourist visa expires, Alex will have to survive as illegal migrant until he finds a job as Latin teacher. Besides, Jonàs, a recovering alcoholic, suffers a relapse and, unexpectedly, commits suicide. Alone, desperate and again unemployed, Àlex decides to steal Jonàs identity in order to stay in New York. With the aide of Fanny, he gradually becomes a professional photographer and manages to deceive even Jonàs’ former employers. The impersonation culminates when the protagonist seduces another Catalan tourist, Marc, using Jonàs identity. But this new romance will abruptly end once Janet reveals the ploy. Shortly after, Àlex finds out that his mother is dying and he finally decides to come back to Barcelona. The return means also meeting again with ancient hates and fears. Alex had a bad relationship with his family but, after all his experiences abroad; he sees the loose of his mother as an opportunity for moving beyond resentments. He is no longer the young and arrogant scholar who dismissed the practical side of the world in favour of the beauty and wisdom of ancient western culture. Living with Jonàs, and even more as him, he has understood that beauty could be everywhere and, consequently, he tries to accept and embrace the world as it is, without fears or moral preconceptions.
Written in a first-person narrative, the book explores the protagonist’s nature with a deep and nuanced perspective that, unfortunately, is lacking in other relevant cases: Janet or Fanny, by comparison, may seem a bit hazy and one-sided. Cultural references are also a key component of this book. Being a highly educated person, Alex dots his story with frequent quotes of a wide range of writers, poets and musicians of the western cannon, including several contemporary and classical Catalan authors, as a way of reflecting on the different situations he has to go through. In this regard, the novel seems to aim at a quite sophisticated reader, rather than the massive reading public usually attired by commercial YA fiction. The book offers also a vivid contrast between its conversational tone and the depth of some issues brought up in it. As it is stated several times in its pages, everything goes as if an excessive seriousness could always be suspected of affectation or arrogance.
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