The Strangers by Jon Bilbao

Spanish fiction

Originl title- los extraños

Translator – Katie Whittlemore

Source – Personal copy

I often talk about publishers I like and one of them the is Dalkey Archive in the last few years they have brought a few great books from Spain so when I was browsing for a new book to buy and saw this had just come out from them I chose it as it is a perfect read in a day book as it clocks in at just over 120 pages. Plus, the blurb sounds to me like it could have been an old episode of X Files a family move to a town where there have been UFO sightings, and there have been so many great books from Spanish in recent years that have Erie or another feeling to the narrative, and I felt this may be like those books.

The estuary curves around the base of Monte Corbero and discharges into the sea at one end of the beach. It courses, piguant, after all the rain. The beach looks very different from the image it projects in the summer, when she and Jon typically come to spend a few days and his parents are home and take care of everything and insist that Katharina and Jon go have a swim and relax as much as they can. Now, dark bands of marine litter and plastic debris cut across the sand.Jon’s parents winter in the Canary Islands.

The arrival at the winter home seaside at winter always an odd place.

The book sees a couple Jon and Katherine take a trip to the Cantabrian coast to overwinter there they have got sort of jobs which means they can now work remotely after living for years in the city.There is a sense this is maybe a chance to come together again as a couple. So They are stay overwinter in a family members house at the coast. but as the time goes by they drift apart this is the first off the three parts of the book the couple settling in and then coloured lights appear at night and the winter retreat becomes home to some more family when another couple claiming to be cousins appear said to have been raised by grandparents in Latin America.Markel and Virgine appear and initially Jon is wary of them but his wife persuade him to let the couple habng around. BUut are they connected to the lights. There is also a growing amount of UFO watcher and a feeling of something other than them being around them.

There’s a dog in the foreground at one edge of the frame. Only the back half of it is visible, out of focus. Definitely a German Shepherd. It walked in front of the camera just as the photo was taken.

The boys are looking at it with identical expressions: mouth opened in an “O” of surprise and smiling eyes. The dog has turned them into twins.

“I thought you two had never seen each other before,”

‘ says Katharina.

“That’s what I thought,” Jon replies.

“Me too,” Markel agrees.

“Where is this?” Katharina asks, peering closely at the picture.

Have the cousins meet before ?

This is a short book that has three parts to it the  couple settling in the lights appearing and the second part the cousins or supposed cousins of Jon he has no memory of them but some families can be like that we have second cousins I ‘ve met maybe twice in my life from my father generation . Then the last part is what the other is in a way . This has a wry feel to it remind me of a mix up of xfiles episodes there is the comic ones there is a sense of humour in this book but also that sense of creepiness the sense of the other being there something that I have seen so well done in recent years in Argentina fiction fever dream or the danger of smoking in bed. Its as if the xfiles had a latin American writer the main couple have a feel of any modern couple trying to escape the rat race but the grass insn’t green and that is just where they were at when the lights appeared adding a turning point of the story the other couple could have walked of a x files episode they have that feeling of holding secrets and not quite seeming what they are how many of these type of people are their in the x file episodes. As you can tell I was a huge X file fans so anything with a ufo theme is going drawme back into the world of mulder and scully bnut this has a distinctive Spanish twist. Have you read this book ?

Winstons score – A – tightly told tale in three parts of a couple trying to escape and rebuild but then buzzed by UFO’S