Eric Gamalinda

I just finished reading The Descartes Highlands by Eric Gamalinda. What a wonderful book! The language is vivid, the love hurts and the characters are intimate and real. Some of the scenes were strikingly painful and others so dreamlike, it was like I was there, part of the dream, swimming through it along with him. Sometimes I lost track of which character was in the lead role at the time, but the willing suspension of disbelief carried me through to the end. I wanted my happy ending, but show more if not entirely happy, at least there was some relief. I'll be looking for more from this gifted author. show less

Since finishing "The Descartes Highlands" I have been trying to feel qualified to review it. Multiple parallel threads, set in two time periods, laden with high choler and sometimes mysterious motivations – these are the initial challenges of this book.

Mr. Gamalinda tells the story of two young men, born to two Philippine women but fathered by one American man, who pursue answers to their mysterious pasts through different channels. One was adopted by married French filmmakers, the other show more by a woman who operated an abortion clinic near New York. The uncertainty of their origins, and their resulting mistrust of everyone around them, puts them at odds with their lives. The energy generated by this tension drives the narrative forward.

Well – it partly drives the narrative, because the most abundant element here is rage. The anger comes through so strongly and unremittingly that I think it can only be authorial. He directs it at American imperialism in the Vietnam War era, state corruption and oppression under Marcos, and the hopelessness still rampant in Manila. He also trains his anger at the selfish modern approach to love.

The story builds in an organic fashion, and for me, keeps the reader at a distance from the hints that would most clearly reveal plot and thematic intent. Mr. Gamalinda has produced a plaintive novel, dense with emotion and the high stakes of loving someone, in which victims abound and solutions come at staggering cost. This book focuses the reader on some demanding, timeless issues, and challenges her to bring high energy to a story crying for resolutions. I recommend this book to those with large, giving hearts, who can afford to spend the emotional capital demanded here.

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The Descartes Highlands by Eric Gamalinda (Akashic Books)

This dark, gritty narrative is scattered over time, place, and viewpoint but at it's heart is the terrible underworld of the Philippines in the early 1970s. This is a "you will love it or hate it" kind of book.

Two men, one raised in the US and one raised in France, are half brothers who were sold as infants by their draft-dodging American father in Manilla. Their mothers were Filipinas. As adults, they set out separately to find some show more answers to the riddles of their pasts and possibly the meaning of life. The story is told in pieces alternating between the two sons and the father. It's demands careful reading in order to tell which is which.

Warning: The book is filled with graphic descriptions of sex, torture, and an abortion. F-Bombs abound. There is also love of various kinds, a mish-mash of philosophy and religion, politics, friendship, betrayal, and strange characters. Did I mention drugs? That too.

I hesitate to say I liked it. When I finished it I shook my head and asked myself "WTF did I just read?" Whatever it is, I'm not sorry I read it, I'll re-read passages, and it will stay with me. show less

As a prefatory note: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This is the type of book that will be taught in literature courses in years to come. Whatever you think that implies, you’re probably correct. It is a book filled with complicated themes, emotions, and relationships, contradictions and contrasts and juxtapositions – just like real life. The situations described are, at once, beautiful and messy. Often times the prose is brilliantly show more written and profound, other times more subtle, but requiring contemplation most all of the time. In short, this is a book that requires the reader to pay attention and think. It can be challenging. The plot structure alone requires some deft footwork, as it juggles the interconnected yet almost entirely separate lives of a man and two sons (born of different women) he sold for adoption upon their birth in early 1970’s Philippines. You want complicated? How about abortion, revolution, torture, Danish cinema, Cotard’s syndrome, abandonment, belonging, and search for one’s identity. These are a few of the concepts the author thoughtfully explores. Most of the characters are not particularly likable or, at the very least, their motives not easy to discern and their decisions not always logical. There are frequent and typically graphic sex scenes. And, as in life, not everything is buttoned up nicely just because you reach a milestone. In this case, by end of the book, there are still unanswered questions about some of the characters. Yet, I did not feel the journey was incomplete. It’s more like the driver with whom I had shared a ride was dropping me off near my destination – maybe not at the doorstep, but close enough so that I can get there if that’s still what I want. Then again, I might choose to go somewhere else entirely. Either way, I was treated to a thought-provoking and memorable expedition. show less