The Transmigration of Bodies is the second of Yuri Herrera’s novels to be translated by Lisa Dillman and published by And Other Stories. The first was Signs Preceding the End of the World, one of my very favourite books from last year. Where Signs was a book of borders, Transmigration is more concerned with networks and exchange; but that same sense of hallucinating reality is ever-present. I have three posts aboutthis new book lined up, starting with a few notes on names…
In the first chapter, Herrera’s narrator wakes up, looks out on a city that’s been quietened by the plague, and gets frisky with his neighbour, Three Times Blonde. Throughout all of this, we know him only as a pronoun. It’s only at the end of the chapter, when our man has taken a phone call, that he becomes the Redeemer.
The Redeemer has been called upon by Dolphin Fonseca to retrieve the latter’s son Romeo from another crime family, the Costas, in an exchange. What the Redeemer will be exchanging, he discovers later, is the daughter of the Costa family, Baby Girl.
As you might gather from the above, it’s a rare character in The Transmigration of Bodies who gets to be known by an actual name, rather than a nickname or epithet. “Some sad fuck so much as takes a bite of bread and we got to find a name for it,” thinks the Redeemer. These aliases help to mark the contours of the novel’s world: when the Redeemer answers that call from Dolphin, he is explicitly leaving behind a period (however fleeting) of anonymity and stepping back into the city’s underworld. Baby Girl doesn’t like her nickname; but, when she speaks her real name aloud, we’re not told what it is – she’s as bound by the alias as she is by social and familial forces.
The nicknames also slide into a more general euphemistic language that sets the terms of engagement with the crime world:
Banished man alias Mennonite. Broken man alias Redeemer. Lonely old soul alias Light of my life. Ravaged woman alias Wonder where she’s gone. Get revenge alias Get even. Truly fucked alias Not to worry. Contempt alias Nobody remembers him. Scared shitless alias Didn’t see a thing. Scared shitless alias Doing just fine. Some sad fuck alias Chip off the old block. Just what I was hoping for alias You won’t get away with this. Housebroken words alias Nothing but truth.
There are some things that can only be done under an alias. And there are some things you don’t say about them, at least not directly.
Book details (Foyles affiliate link)
The Transmigration of Bodies (2013) by Yuri Herrera, tr. Lisa Dillman (2016), And Other Stories paperback
5th July 2016 at 3:13 pm
This one is also on my list for Spanish Lit month. Very excited to read it!
8th July 2016 at 8:43 pm
Hope you enjoy it! I think you will.
5th July 2016 at 10:05 pm
I read Signs Preceding a few months ago and am very much looking forward to this, although I’ll probably wait until next year.
8th July 2016 at 8:59 pm
Yes, I think it’s a good idea to space them out – he’s not the kind of writer to be read all at once.
6th July 2016 at 8:22 pm
Very much looking forward to read this (and to reading your next two posts about it!)
8th July 2016 at 9:04 pm
Thanks, Grant!
8th July 2016 at 6:08 pm
That quote reminds me strongly of the aliases paragraph in Tram 83. I’m really excited about this novel. Looking forward to your other posts.
8th July 2016 at 9:23 pm
Yes, Herrera’s writing does have a similar linguistic intensity to Tram 83, doesn’t it?