By JON BILBAO (Dalkey Archive Press; 2021/23)
This present tense oddity hails from Spain. Written by an author who’s allegedly “one of the most important figures in Spanish narrative of the twenty-first century,” THE STRANGERS has been vastly overpraised, but imparts a powerful sense of near-otherworldly strangeness.
The “otherworldly” designation is meant literally, as in the opening pages strange lights appear in the sky over the house where the unhappily married protagonists Katherina and Jon are vacationing. The source of those lights is never revealed, but they bring a crush of ufologists to the area, along with another couple who turn up the following morning bearing suitcases: Virginia and Markel, the latter of whom claims to be Jon’s second cousin. Jon has no memory of Markel or their relationship, but allows him and Virginia to stay in the house, which happens to be owned by Jon’s parents.
The ufologists are a constant nuisance, but it’s Markel and Virginia, enigmatic yet vaguely threatening characters, who prove to be the biggest irritants. Among their sins are a standoffish and often downright unpleasant attitude, a tendency to keep their lodgings in a state of unbelievable squalor and the fact that they simply won’t leave—until the lights in the sky return, at which point events take an altogether unexpected turn.
Pandemic anxiety would appear to be a major component in this book’s conception, as would themes like the fallacy of blind trust and the dangers of routine. THE STRANGERS has been described as a “Spanish-gothic version of a Patricia Highsmith novel,” but a more accurate comparison would be to the satirical fiction of Thomas Berger, which often centered on suburban protagonists done in by their own misplaced politeness (with THE STRANGERS often reading like a UFO-tinged rewrite of Berger’s novels NEIGHBORS or MEETING EVIL).
What really distinguishes this novel is the straightforward yet oddly detached quality of its descriptions (adroitly translated by Kate Whittemore). There’s a downright science fictionish quality to observations like “Their fingers are numb from the cold. They look and discover that they’re bleeding, they hadn’t even noticed. Sucking the wounds, they ask where they can get something to drink around here,” which of course compliments the subject matter. The author’s precise intent, however, is anyone’s guess.