Spain: La Pereza Ediciones. 2023. 222 pages.
Some pessimists say that every story has already been told. However, this isn’t exactly what happened in the Bible: the two brothers are not named Abel and Cain, but rather Darío and David. One doesn’t kill the other, and except for the occasional brief flashback in Barcelona, nearly the entire plot unfolds in an un-mystical Santo Domingo. In this telling, the long shadow of the biblical Yahweh is replaced advantageously by the titanic paternal figure of the General, a symbol of Carribean authoritarianism who remains omnipresent even after his death.
In Guapo, a novel by the Dominican writer Miguel Yarull, readers will have the impression of encountering a classic plot, inevitable in its ending, while at the same time strangely novel in its details. A Caribbean modern tragedy, that is, with touches of comedy or even farce.
We never learn the real name of the General. The narrative opens with his burial and military funeral honors. He’s just referred to as La Macana—the historical blunt weapon of the Taíno people—for having been a relentless persecutor of communists and union leaders under the governments of Trujillo, Balaguer, and Bosch, unforgettable and dictatorial presidents of his country.
The frightening father of the two D’s is a typical figure in Caribbean history, a true archetype: he’s not the supreme leader, but one of those mid-ranking military commanders. Discreet and hardly visible but incredibly powerful, as those in charge of doing the dirty work of not-exactly-democratic governments often are. Almost anonymous individuals, but with a sinister, repressive efficiency without which no dictatorship would be possible. And who, in the long run, sometimes prevail in the shadows for much longer than the tyrants who hoisted them up and sheltered them. Because they are, in a way, the Military itself.
Men from humble backgrounds who have crafted themselves through discipline and force, embracing the uniform, and who (logically?) hope their offspring, though born with a silver spoon in their mouth, will inherit their same hunger for power and wealth.
Individuals brought up on brutal work, who never received paternal affection, and therefore do not know how to give it to their progeny. Instead, they are wary that their children will embody the worst sin: softness, which then leads to queerness, the biggest contrast imaginable to the macho Latino archetype of which they feel they are an ideal representation, almost experts.
No feminist today would hesitate for a second to classify the General as a perfect example of toxic masculinity. He exhibits all of the requisites: serial infidelities with poor young girls whose nubile flesh he buys with money and favors; habitual visits to strip clubs, even when married to Señora Digna, the mother of his two sons—whom he doesn’t hesitate to initiate, forcefully, into the steamy secrets of sex; distrust in all things that appear to be culture, like David’s interest in playing “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas on the violin instead of listening to bachatas and drinking white rum by the liter, but without getting drunk like his father. The cult of militarized manhood. Because a real man has to get used to firearms and hunting at a young age, so they know what death is and understand soldiers obey orders and never question them.
Obviously, with such a God-like father, of a harsh and unquestionable authority, who regularly threatens his children with beatings (often doling them out without hesitation), it makes sense that they were born as extremes. The yin and yang: his sons.
Darío is the oldest: submissive, anxious to please his father, and obedient. So he joins the military, studying at the prestigious North American academy Valley Forge to become a colonel, despite having no charisma or innate leadership skills. He installs himself at his father’s side until his death, whereupon he aspires to inherit all of his assets.
“Despite being predictable at times, the book’s ending is surprising and leaves a bittersweet taste of both morality and fatality”
David, the youngest, on the other hand, is blonde-haired and green-eyed like his paternal grandmother and a classic rebel. He never dared to physically confront the General; a model student and gifted athlete, his distant father never condescended to attend any of his basketball games or swimming competitions. At a young age, he became the typical handsome showoff: taking hard drugs and never backing down from any fight, knowing that the dreaded name of his progenitor could always get him out of trouble and out of jail. However, despite leaving a classmate with one eye and committing another thousand unforgivable acts, these were just desperate cries for the attention he never got. Until, one day, David crossed a line, and the transgression would banish him from Santo Domingo. He wouldn’t return there until thirty years later to bury his father, with an Argentine girlfriend who adores him in tow and anxious to know if, despite everything, the General has left him his fortune in his will—perhaps realizing that, in his son’s stubborn rebelliousness, David was more like him than anyone thought.
Guapo reads easily, in a single stretch: it’s not written with formal flourishes or stylistic ostentation. Yarull is one of those sober writers convinced that, if they are meaty enough, stories will speak for themselves, and he leaves them to find their own voice. Though, more than a story, his novel is almost a session of psychoanalysis. Not just in its complexities of the well-behaved brother or the black sheep son, but in its tale of the Dominican national trauma. The tragedy of a country deformed by decades of authoritarian dictatorships, hostage to a past that just a few generations of democracy is not enough to free it from. Of the struggles of an unordinary Caribbean man to live up to his demanding and traditional father’s expectations of masculinity. Of the inability to give love if it has never been received. Of the pathetic and vicious circles that we sometimes call familial and human relationships
David, the charismatic protagonist, is a character of marvelous ambivalence: at some moments, we hate and despise him for his arrogant behavior, and at others, we empathize with the pain of the prodigal son, admiring his bravery and loyalty to his friends.
Sometimes he demonstrates a desire to redeem himself, as in his relationship with an ex-priest named Drummond, who pulls him out of a drug-induced spiral in Barcelona. Or in his modest attempt to become closer to Alfonso, his nephew in Santo Domingo, who also faces paternal disapproval for his desire to become a DJ and not a soldier. Or in his steadfast fanaticism for everything Japanese, which leads him to be in a relationship with a Japanese woman, to the horror of the Colonel and his mother—the classic, superficial Dominican woman from a good family.
But, on other occasions, David seems to be hell-bent on sinking definitively into the abyss: such as his almost suicidal challenge to the soldier guarding the entrance to the family mansion. Or his provocative stubbornness, claiming an inheritance he doesn’t really know what to do with.
Despite being predictable at times, the book’s ending is surprising and leaves a bittersweet taste of both morality and fatality. I hope Yarull’s new novels maintain this high standard and the press, La Pereza, continues to welcome them into their increasingly selective catalog of Spanish-speaking authors.
