aLana S. Portero’s debut novel became a minor sensation when it was published in Spain last year: it spent seven weeks on the bestseller list, won multiple awards and was translated into 13 languages.
The protagonist, Alex, is a kid growing up in Madrid during the transition from dictatorship to democracy. But instead of the hedonistic city of La Movida Madrileña, the countercultural movement that transformed Spain after Franco’s death, Alex lives in poverty in San Blas. Alex’s Madrid is closer to the Harlem of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Hour., A city of despair, blood and drugs. In fact, the first time Alex wanted to kiss someone, it was her neighbor, Efren, who died of a heroin overdose. “If it’s possible for a five-year-old to fall in love,” she writes, “my love was completely poured out on that tragic accident.”
Like Baldwin, Portello writes from within the grooves of an overgrown religious tradition. Where Baldwin’s writing is heavy with the pulpit rhetoric he first tackled as a young Pentecostal pastor, Portello’s style is indelibly Catholic. Alex’s world is one of offering and piety, where Lily Munster and the Madonna become intercessory angels. Litanies of saints are applied to her poor neighbors, and the effect is deeply moving. Portello paints a world of violence and petty cruelty, and his protagonist moves through it with a kind of blissful mercy and a precocious ability to distinguish between the people he hurts and the damage they inflict.
Never doubt that Alex is suffering: she is harassed and abused not just for being a young woman, but for being a young transgender woman. A friend of her father’s roughly handles Alex, pretending to penetrate her, “doggy-style, thrusting wildly and making her moan and groan.” Lecherous strangers on street corners harass Alex, until a brutal sexual assault leaves her unconscious. The last of these scenes is particularly harrowing, but, like the rest of the story, it is told without self-pity. It is this kind of restraint that enhances the book’s power.
The novel is also peppered with wry humor. Alex employs stoic resourcefulness to protect herself both from the creepiness of Madrid’s streets and from her victimhood. On her way home at dawn, she stops on a park bench to change into something less outlandish, and a man in a plastic poncho masturbates in front of her. “Without looking away,” Alex calmly recounts, “he begins wiping off his make-up with the wet wipes he always carries.” The scene It’s so true that it’s unsettlingly funny.
That’s not to say Portero’s Madrid is inhabited only by sleazy con men and perverts. Perhaps the most memorable characters are the San Blas neighbors, who, through Alex’s innocent eyes, are transformed into fairy-tale characters – more Angela Carter than Walt Disney, though. “Wig” is an old woman named for the “very shoddy” wig she wears that has the ability to curse pregnant women to give birth to monkeys. “Lady Godiva” is a young woman held captive by her rapist father, who appears to have murdered and partially cannibalized him. “Head Butter” has been known to knock out fascists. “Lil Crip” has never been vaccinated against polio.
And then there are women like Margarita, a now middle-aged transgender woman scarred by beatings at the hands of Franco’s police and plastic surgery by shady doctors. At first, their misshapen bodies and pockmarked skin frighten Alex, but as the book progresses, they become his brightest angels, illuminating his own path. I can’t help but think that Bad Habit, brimming with deep humility and prose as rich as double cream, will similarly function as a guidepost for readers stumbling, wounded, towards their own personhood.
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