Only Smoke by Juan José Millás shimmers and drifts with an otherworldly ethereality. Millás is the winner of the Premio Nadal and many more of Spain's prestigious literary prizes, and this superb translation, by Thomas Bunstead and Daniel Hahn, is his third work to be published in North America.
Upon turning 18, Carlos learns that the father he's had no contact with since birth has recently died in a motorcycle crash. Carlos inherits his apartment and its contents. While settling in among his father's belongings, Carlos begins reading a collection of Grimms' fairy tales he finds there. He's soon literally immersed in the stories, becoming a ghostlike physical presence that accompanies the likes of Hansel and Gretel and Cinderella on their journeys. Moreover, he encounters in the tales the specter of his father, the last vestige of whom is seemingly trapped within the stories. Remnants of his father linger in the physical world, too: his diaries that Carlos finds, for instance, and a female neighbor, Amelia, who considered Carlos's father a good friend.
In his diaries, his father claims to have been the father of Amelia's child and to have inadvertently caused the child's death. Within the pages of the fairy-tale book and within the walls of his father's apartment, Carlos navigates the boundaries of layers of fiction, reality, and identity, searching for a way to fully inhabit the space he finds himself within.
Only Smoke is a captivating and thought-provoking modern fairy tale, a real joy for readers who love narratives that play with the craft of storytelling, penned by a contemporary master. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.