The Asturian writer leaves everything in his most recent novel title: “Araña”. (The confidential).

After the good reception of the readers of “Basil” there “The foreigners”in 2020 and 2021, respectively, the Asturian John Bilbao returns to bookstores with a new publication, by the publisher Obstacleslabel managed by Enrique Redelto bring the characters of these stories back to life.

Located in temporary scenarios that can be described as delusional, the pages that make up “Spider” They reflect, once again, the mastery as a narrator of Bilbao. There are about 416 of them, and in them readers will meet gunslinger John Dunbar, a brooding guy known to everyone as “Basilisk”, who guides a group of people across the United States in search of ‘a place called ‘the Men’s Paradise’, something like a promised land for men.

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As he progresses in his journey, Dunbar meets Lucrecia, the sister of one of the party members, the only female member of the expedition. With her, ‘Basilisk’ will establish a deep relationship and try to improve things after their divorce. Her ex-girlfriend, Katharina, is in Paris, and a mud storm prevents her from moving normally, forcing her to take refuge and meet a character she never expected to see again, “the Spider “. Everyone, at some point, regardless of the era, ends up running into him. His figure is transgressive, harmful, toxic, and has a more than close connection with Dunbar himself.

book cover "Spider"by Jon Bilbao. (Editorial impediments).
Cover of the book “Spider”, by Jon Bilbao. (Editorial impediments).

Like it’s a storybook “Spider”, throughout its pages, tells a story in two acts. It deals, on the one hand, with the life of Jon, a boy from Ribadesella with an overflowing imagination, in the 70s. On the other hand, with the story of the shooter Dunbar, who faces the most uncertain destinies .

John Dunbar, the wounds on his back dripping again, soaking through his bonds, blood running between his buttocks, cursed himself for giving him such satisfaction, for not having negotiated with himself first but to have yielded to his impulses and to have acted as others expected him to. to do, which, once again, had been done to his detriment and to the benefit of someone he did not care about at all” – (Fragment, “Spider”by Jon Bilbao).

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A metafiction-like novel, where the author himself gets involved and ends up being part of the story, with his characters; a mix of genres, sometimes chronicle, sometimes novel, a story disguised as a storybook. Here, John Bilbao decides to turn his writing career, on the form and on the bottom. The ubiquitous postmodern, with a certain dirty realism; a muddy narrative, full of gimmicks, techniques, with an intense layering of time, styles and spaces.

both in “Basil” there “The foreigners”, As here, the author uses chapters with an air of self-conclusion and manages to make each passage independent, as well as part of a whole. Your own style, you said Tommaso Koch For The country, it walks at several crossroads: “Novel, but almost an anthology of stories; everyday literature, horror and even fantasy; of introspection, just like the worn hats and the immense spaces (…). Bilbao tells of shootings and depressions, a drink in a bar or an epic across the great plains. Perhaps so many contrasts can be summed up in one piece of information: it turns out that an “arachnophobic” guy titled his novel after the insect that terrifies him.

Asturian writer Jon Bilbao. (Hispano-American Notebooks).
Asturian writer Jon Bilbao. (Hispano-American Notebooks).

“I first heard of you in Boston. By chance. I was in a room. At the next table, a man was telling two others how you and your brother dug up your mother’s body to retrieve her diamond ring. The story caught my attention. However, what made me decide to write it was the fascination with which these men listened to it, travelers from Europe, judging by their accent, who kept asking questions, eager to find out more. Then I went looking for new stories about you. He visited the station and asked those who came from the border. I bribed hotel porters to alert me to the arrival of travelers from the west. That’s how I found out you became the Basilisk. The next step was to place advertisements in newspapers, offering a reward in exchange for information. In most cases, I only received rumours, snippets of stories heard by third parties, hoaxes perhaps. Nevertheless, they were a good raw material. My readers couldn’t get enough of you. The basilisk against the one-armed puppeteer was one of our greatest successes” – (Fragment, “Spider”by Jon Bilbao).

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Count what counts, write what you write, John Bilbao he has his way. He masters the plausibility of the absurd like few others and flaunts his extraordinary vision to merge reality with the most fantastical discourse, underpinned by references to the classic and his nods to the exaggeratedly contemporary, his fixed gaze on the most savage aspect of humanity. .

In “Spider”, the suspicions that Bilbao was already one of the most disruptive and interesting Spanish writers of contemporary storytelling in this country, go beyond the realm of speculation and become certainties. The Asturian demonstrates his enormous capacity, with subtlety and finesse.

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