Fernando A. Flores: “The oldest stories of this land were fantastical in essence”
Photo by Eric Morales Welcome to the trippy parallel universe of Fernando A. Flores’s forthcoming debut novel, Tears of the Trufflepig. Set on the border of South Texas and Mexico, the book follows Esteban Bellacosa, whose attempts to lead a simple life after the loss of his wife and daughter are thwarted when he encounters journalist Paco Herbert. His new companion scores him a hot ticket to an illegal underground dinner serving “filtered” animals—animals scientifically brought back from extinction to entertain and feed the super-rich—and things become increasingly treacherous from there. Bellacosa takes an interest in the Trufflepig, a mythical creature at the dinner party once worshipped by the thought-to-be-disappeared Aranaña Indian tribe, and he subsequently embarks on a journey of flame-shooting border walls, a heist of ancient Olmec artifacts, crime syndicates at every turn, and, for all its absurdity, a surprising amount of sobering parallels to our current behavior as a society.
Never read anything like it before? Neither had I. I reached Flores over email and via Google docs to get to the bottom of his imaginative new book.
— KrisAnne Madaus for Guernica.
Guernica:
