I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me

Starred review from March 1, 2020
A grad student gets caught up in a world of gangsters. Villalobos (I'll Sell You a Dog, 2016, etc.) is known for experimental novels that tangle the absurd with the grotesque, the poignant with the foulmouthed. His latest novel to appear in English might be his best yet. The story follows a Mexican literature student, conveniently named Juan Pablo Villalobos, who travels to Barcelona to work on his dissertation and, by way of his cousin, gets caught up in a world of gangsters and thugs. He has to do what they tell him to do, or else. He finds himself casting his girlfriend aside, pursuing a Catalan lesbian named Laia, and, possibly worst of all, changing his dissertation topic. The narrative alternates between his point of view, his enraged girlfriend's diary entries, and long, rambling letters from both his now-deceased cousin and his passive-aggressive, guilt-tripping mother, who refers to herself in the third person ("would it have killed you to call her on Christmas Eve?"). Villalobos' narrative style is so propulsive it's nearly impossible to stop reading. There's certainly a mystery--or two or three--buried under all this, but where the red herrings end and the mysteries begin could be anyone's guess. Along the way, Villalobos has a lot to say about racism, colorism, tensions around immigration, literary theory--oh, and the nature, uses, and limits of humor in literature. This is a hilarious novel, and it's brilliant and it's bittersweet, too, in surprising ways. The mixture is uneasy and also just right. Pitch-perfect from start to finish.

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March 30, 2020
Villalobos (I’ll Sell You a Dog) mixes academia and organized crime in this fast-paced, irreverent tale. The narrator, named Juan Pablo Villalobos, is a Mexican graduate student in literature about to fly to Barcelona on a scholarship to work on his dissertation about humor in Latin American literature. After a gangster kidnaps him at a bookstore and takes him to a basement, Juan Pablo is tied to a chair next to his cousin, a petty criminal named Projects. The kidnappers tell Juan Pablo he must go to Barcelona and seduce the daughter of a dirty politician, or else they will kill his father. Juan Pablo reluctantly accepts, but there are many unforeseen troubles once he lands in Barcelona. Villalobos switches between the registers of the criminal underworld and the ivory tower with ease—on one page, mobsters spit insults at each other; on the next, the narrator discusses an essay by Gayle Rubin and Judith Butler about sexuality and technology. Villalobos’s strange narrative is intellectually nimble, wildly entertaining, and undeniably filthy, with many scenes of debauchery juxtaposed against thoughtful diary entries from Juan Pablo’s girlfriend and meditations on the work of writers, all ably translated by Hahn. This thriller has substance and a comedic heart, and is well worth diving into.