From the Shadows

Starred review from June 10, 2019
In Millas’s first novel to hit the U.S., he takes readers on an absurdist ride into the psyche of a man who has lost his job and ended up living inside a massive antique wardrobe. Trapped inside it after running from a cop who caught him shoplifting, Damian Lobo is soon transported to the home of a young family, purchasers of the giant antique. As days, then weeks, then months slide by, Damian becomes a ghostlike butler for the family during their daytime absence: doing their laundry and dishes, cooking meals, and fixing things around the home, and then slipping back into the shadows of the wardrobe at night. The dark and humorous narrative is often told through the internal monologue of Damian, who obsessively imagines himself a celebrity being interviewed on TV, allowing the reader insights into his thoughts and slowly deteriorating mind. “He sometimes wondered how long the situation might last. He fantasized about it lasting forever. And about things progressing, too, in the sense of a day arriving when he would be able to step out of the wardrobe and move among them while remaining invisible.” Part surreal comedy, part dark parable, Millas’s wild work brings readers face to face with the mundane facets of middle-class suburban life, while also dragging them along on Damian’s slow descent into alienation, disassociation, and perhaps even madness. A page-turner of the strangest order, Millas’s debut stuns and entrances. It’s impossible to put down.

June 15, 2019
A nicotine- and porn-addicted Spanish misanthrope secretly lives in the closet of a family of strangers. This novel by celebrated Spanish author Millás, his first to be published in North America, is spectacularly bizarre. The protagonist is Damián Lobo, age 43, and after a 25-year career as a maintenance man, he's recently been fired from his job. He's addicted to cigarettes and internet porn, specifically the Asian variety, as we learn that his formational sexual experiences were with his Chinese adoptive sister. Our boy masturbates a lot, as you might have guessed. To balance out his other habits, it's also pretty apparent that he's mentally ill, to the point where half his waking day is spent in hallucinated interviews with Sergio O'Kane, a Spanish journalist, which are broadcast around the world in Lobo's imagination. After nicking a stupid tie clip from an antiques market in a fit of pique and nearly getting caught, he takes refuge in a smelly old wardrobe that winds up being delivered to a family's home. Hidden most of the time, he secretly insinuates himself into the lives of Federico, who owns an electronic-toy store, his unhappy wife, Lucía, and their troubled daughter, María. As he begins to clean up their home, Damián (also naked most of the time and occasionally masturbating under the parents' bed) reimagines his role as "Ghost Butler," posting about his exploits on internet forums and achieving a bit of anonymous fame. There's certainly a change here between Lucía's blossoming, María's trying to conquer her teenage troubles, and a troubling revelation about Federico, but readers will need to surmount a lot of hurdles to embrace our eccentric leading man despite Millás' obviously imaginative style and literary weight. A Kafkaesque story about transformation and our collective human desire to connect with one another.

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