The Barcelona Brothers

June 18, 2012
This feverish, present-tense novel, Zanón’s first to be published in English, strives for unflinching honesty in its stark portrait of the Barcelona slums that serve as the backdrop to an inexplicable crime. Alex Dalmau can’t understand why, early one morning in a neighborhood bar, his younger brother, Epi, suddenly attacks their Moroccan immigrant friend, Tanveer Hussein, with a hammer, then runs out of the bar. Alex blames the fatal assault on a Pakistani onlooker, in order to buy himself some time to find Epi, who is now obsessed with winning back his beautiful, imperious ex, Tiffany Brisette, more recently Tanveer’s flame. Zanón sharply captures the mental detritus of his characters’ fleeting thoughts, while the tortured relationship of the native-born Alex and Epi to their North African friend dramatizes the tensions festering beneath Spain’s nominally multicultural surface. The prevalence of fatherlessness among his characters sounds a warning bell for the country’s future.

August 1, 2012
A dark, nihilistic novel evoking the spirit of Dostoevsky. Brothers Epi and Alex Dalmau visit a seedy Barcelona bar that serves as a magnet for whores and drugs. Epi comes prepared to knock in his friend Tanveer's skull, which he accomplishes with some difficulty. Epi escapes the crime scene, but an innocent Pakistani man also runs away from the violence. Alex decides to do whatever he can to protect Epi, so he tells the police that the "Paki" did it. But why would Epi kill his friend? The answer becomes evident before long through a series of flashbacks. The author vividly writes of the Spanish underclass and its turbulent interactions with Arab immigrants. The language and many scenes are depressing, and the characters unsympathetic, perhaps with the exception of Epi's girlfriend, Tiffany. No one's bulb shines brightly in this book, and no one appears to have any chance of escaping the barrio or aspiring to anything better. The story is well-told, but there are no light moments to ease the tension. What if the police see through Alex's lies? Will Epi get what he deserves? Assuming that readers care about the characters' fates, they likely will be disappointed by the way the story ends. The writing is strong, but this is not an easy book to like. If you aren't averse to a dose or three of gloom, give it a shot.

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2012
Epi Dalmau picks up a hammer and murders his friend Tanveer Hussein in a shabby bar in a shabby Barcelona barrio. He kills Tanveer because the North African has stolen Tiffany, the woman Epi loves. Epi's older brother, Alex, witnesses the murder, and because he promised his late mother he would look out for Epi, he blames the crime on a Pakistani who entered the bar only to use the restroom. Zanon, a poet and novelist, focuses on these characters, but his larger intent is to expose the desperation and despair in barrios populated only by the impaired, the poor, junkies, drunks, and old folks. Each of his main characters is impaired in some way: Epi is mentally slow; Alex maintains his precarious emotional balance with anti-schizophrenia meds; Tiffany is willful, manipulative, and childishly self-absorbed, and Tanveer is a criminal who preys on the weak. It's not a pretty cast, but for crime fans who think of Barcelona as one of the world's most beautiful and cosmopolitan cities, it will be an eye-opener.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)