Juan José Millás, From the Shadows, Trans. by Thomas Bunstead and Daniel Hahn, Bellevue Literary Press, 2019.
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Laid off from his job, Damián Lobo obsessively imagines himself as a celebrity being interviewed on TV. After committing an act of petty theft at an antiques market, he finds himself trapped inside a wardrobe and delivered to the seemingly idyllic home of a husband, wife, and their internet-addicted teenage daughter. There, he sneaks from the shadows to serve as an invisible butler, becoming deeply and disastrously involved with his unknowing host family. Every thread of the plot is ingeniously tied together, creating a potent admixture of parable, love story, and thriller. Millás masterfully reveals the everyday as innately surreal as he renders the unbelievable tangible and the trivial fantastical, and full of dark humor.
Why can't breaking with routine be considered among the most subversive of acts? Damián Lobo does exactly this the day he loses his job. He starts off by obsessively imagining himself being interviewed as a celebrity on TV, in denial of his solitude and his habit of talking to himself. From there, he commits a petty theft at an antique market, which then leads him to hide inside an old gigantic wooden closet which he can't get out of until it's sold and transported to the idyllic home of an apparently happy husband and wife and their Internet-addicted teenage daughter. Once the movers leave the closet in the place the couple wanted it to be and with no one watching or in the house, Damián uses his carpenter skills to carve out a living space between this closet which was placed in front of a built-in closet. From this space and this shadow, he convinces himself he will be of more use inside the house, living with them and without them ever realizing it. Every morning, once the coast is clear, he makes their beds, cleans their washroom, their dishes, and becomes their "invisible butler". Who in the family will find out first? How will they find out? Will he save the day and conquer their hearts, or will he provoke more disaster or time in prison? All of the answers will come in a surprise twist ending, only a literary genius can think up, with atypical optimism conquering justified melancholy.
In Millas’s first novel to hit the U.S., he takes readers on an absurdist ride into the psyche of a man who has lost his job and ended up living inside a massive antique wardrobe. Trapped inside it after running from a cop who caught him shoplifting, Damian Lobo is soon transported to the home of a young family, purchasers of the giant antique. As days, then weeks, then months slide by, Damian becomes a ghostlike butler for the family during their daytime absence: doing their laundry and dishes, cooking meals, and fixing things around the home, and then slipping back into the shadows of the wardrobe at night. The dark and humorous narrative is often told through the internal monologue of Damian, who obsessively imagines himself a celebrity being interviewed on TV, allowing the reader insights into his thoughts and slowly deteriorating mind. “He sometimes wondered how long the situation might last. He fantasized about it lasting forever. And about things progressing, too, in the sense of a day arriving when he would be able to step out of the wardrobe and move among them while remaining invisible.” Part surreal comedy, part dark parable, Millas’s wild work brings readers face to face with the mundane facets of middle-class suburban life, while also dragging them along on Damian’s slow descent into alienation, disassociation, and perhaps even madness. A page-turner of the strangest order, Millas’s debut stuns and entrances. It’s impossible to put down. ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“[From the Shadows is] about alienation, loneliness, voyeurism, and the power of fantasy to transform claustrophobic, humdrum lives. Written by one of Spain’s most original and important authors and set in contemporary Madrid . . . [it] pays tribute to a very Spanish tradition, embodied by, among others, surrealists like Luis Buñuel [whose] 1962 film, The Exterminating Angel, [is] another claustrophobic allegory that turns middle-class comfort into a desert island.” ―Public Books
“The narrative of Juan José Millás, our literary Buster Keaton, is inimitable and unique.” ―La Vanguardia
“Millás’s imaginary world is constructed with a playful attitude and an ever-present indignation, set on the boundary between reality and fiction . . . it is enhanced by his sudden shifts into the mysterious folds of quotidian life.” ―El Cultural
“Millás deftly executes the art of narration.” ―Revista de Libros
A nicotine- and porn-addicted Spanish misanthrope secretly lives in the closet of a family of strangers.
This novel by celebrated Spanish author Millás, his first to be published in North America, is spectacularly bizarre. The protagonist is Damián Lobo, age 43, and after a 25-year career as a maintenance man, he’s recently been fired from his job. He’s addicted to cigarettes and internet porn, specifically the Asian variety, as we learn that his formational sexual experiences were with his Chinese adoptive sister. Our boy masturbates a lot, as you might have guessed. To balance out his other habits, it’s also pretty apparent that he’s mentally ill, to the point where half his waking day is spent in hallucinated interviews with Sergio O’Kane, a Spanish journalist, which are broadcast around the world in Lobo’s imagination. After nicking a stupid tie clip from an antiques market in a fit of pique and nearly getting caught, he takes refuge in a smelly old wardrobe that winds up being delivered to a family’s home. Hidden most of the time, he secretly insinuates himself into the lives of Federico, who owns an electronic-toy store, his unhappy wife, Lucía, and their troubled daughter, María. As he begins to clean up their home, Damián (also naked most of the time and occasionally masturbating under the parents’ bed) reimagines his role as “Ghost Butler,” posting about his exploits on internet forums and achieving a bit of anonymous fame. There’s certainly a change here between Lucía's blossoming, María's trying to conquer her teenage troubles, and a troubling revelation about Federico, but readers will need to surmount a lot of hurdles to embrace our eccentric leading man despite Millás’ obviously imaginative style and literary weight.
A Kafkaesque story about transformation and our collective human desire to connect with one another. - Kirkus
Damián Lobo is a fix-it man who’s unable to fix his own life. Middle-aged and just laid off from his dead end janitorial job, he wanders Madrid’s streets alone, imagining himself as an interview subject—and figure of ridicule—on a saucy talk show. But then an act of shoplifting accidentally lands Damián inside of an old wardrobe that is relocated into a middle class family’s apartment. Damián’s misadventures fuel Juan José Millás’s dark comic novel From the Shadows.
Just like the moray eel he often compares himself to, Damián lives hidden from sight. As his latest predicament unfolds, though, he opts to be an agent of change. Growing obsessed with the family who unknowingly shelters him, he ventures out from the wardrobe when no one is around, cleaning the house. In the process, he discovers a newfound purpose as the family’s guardian angel, even as he figuratively becomes a “ghost butler”—a perception he encourages by posing as a poltergeist in an online forum.
Millás finds both the hilarity and pathos in Damián’s situation, freely flowing between the quotidian and the existential. While Damián creates painstaking new routines to clean up his host family’s home and lives and preserve his secrecy, his internal musings run rampant, from the profane (is it wrong to want to sleep with one’s adopted sister?) to the sweetly innocent (should one look under the bed before going to sleep every night?). Throughout, the overriding question nags: Is Damián’s strange new life sustainable?
A compelling stew of comedy, philosophy, and even tragedy, From the Shadows maintains a light touch, even as sinister undertones bubble underneath. Damián’s risky existence leads to unexpected twists and a climax that lingers long after Millás’s absurd lark comes to an end. - Ho Lin
https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/in-my-own-moccasins/
Juan José Millás is the recipient of Spain’s most prestigious literary prizes: the Premio Nadal, Premio Planeta, and Premio Nacional de Narrativa. A regular contributor to El País, Millás has also won many awards for his journalism. He is the author of several short story collections and works of nonfiction as well as over a dozen novels, including From the Shadows, the first of his novels to be published in North America. He lives in Madrid.