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Im going to go out on a limb here and say that Zero Saints, in my humble opinion, is just that little bit better than Coyote Songs.
I bloody loved Coyote Songs, but this one is just off the chain, crazy good!
Please dont hit me in the face I know Coyote Songs holds a special place in peoples hearts, or chop my fingers off and drop them into the bucket, I mean no disrespect its just my opinion.
And whilst we are on that subject what the hell is in the BUCKET Gabino
Tell me, I want to know Or do I Or will it be like playing out the climactic scene in Seen where Brad Pitt is screaming about wanting to know whats in the box We all know how well that turned out.
So on second thoughts Gabino you keep that dirty little secret and your bloody bucket!
Anyway Ive gone totally off point, so lets bring this back to the review.
Zero Saints is a brutal ride into the dark and gritty underbelly of Austin a shitkicking, whiskey drinking, nacho eating, no nonsense kind a place.
A place thats riddled with the lowest of the low, where immigrants find a way of life, where the wealthy keep the poor under the heel of their boot and a place where drug dealers thrive and addicts run rampant.
Its where hit men and enforcers mingle in dive bars and strip joints,
And now, this hellhole that is Austin is where a heavilytattooed group of gangsters are hoping to make a name for themselves and have taken up residence, moving in like a cancer to chew this place up and shit out whats left over.
The American dream is as false as the meat in your onedollar burger and the canned laughter you hear on television.
These gangsters are determined on taking over the local drug racket and will carve this landscape up and keep the lions share for themselves.
Theyll take it by force if they have too, and these brutal gangbangers have something else on their side, which, might be a bit more than human.
Strap yourselves in for the ride of your life, Things are going to get bumpy and bloody, youll be thrown about at will and tossed through the windshield like a crashtestdummy.
This is a race for survival, where all bets are off and the winner takes all,
Zero Saints starts like an olympic sprinter out of the blocks, its fast, brutal and shows no signs of slowing down.
Our protagonist Fernando is kidnapped by a bunch of gangbangers and taken to a dingy part of town in the boot of a car, its one hell of an introduction to our protagonist, the voice of Fernando is brilliant and pulls the reader right in.
Hes pulled out of the car and taken into what appears to be an abandoned house, where he has to witness a friend being tortured and then beheaded.
Its brutal, grotesque and sets the tone for all the crazy thats about to be unleashed on the reader,
Did I mention that theres also a bucket, I can hear you saying, Ross, give it a rest about this bucket but I cant, These gangbangers tear and saw and pull pieces off the man theyre torturing, and onebyone they deposit these offerings into a bucket.
As the morsels of flesh fall in, theres the splat but its then followed by an audible crunch, Its only a subtle thing, something that has no relevance on any of the narrative that follows, but like an itch you cant scratch it stayed with me through the whole damn book.
Itll stay with you too, mark my words, I still hear it in my nightmares
Gabinos prose is on fire in this book, its unflinching as you would expect its one of the reasons I love his work, its also beautifully poetic and masterfully woven together, theres gorgeous work on similes and metaphors that at times had me salivating with its brilliance.
Theres one piece of writing in particular that really blew me away, its just absolutely stunning pageits just masterful,
Sometimes the best thing that happens to other people is an unloaded gun,
Gabino Iglesias is the Mexican Bukowski its a bold statement but one that I stand fully behind, Gabinos work on broken characters is reminiscent of the master himself, it is as if Bukowski were guiding Iglesias pen whilst writing the scintillating Zero Saints.
The prose and narrative in Zero Saints can also be compared to the bleakness, grittiness and utter thrill ride that
was Cormac McCarthys No Country For Old Men.
Gabino Iglesias is elbowing his way into that bracket of writers that I just cant get enough of, hes rubbing shoulders with greatness so he best pull up a chair and make himself comfortable, because on this form and Coyote Songs I think hell be sticking around for a while.
Zero Saints is a freight train derailment of a book and one that truly leaves its mark on the reader, hardboiled crime with a huge slice of horror.
Brilliantly brutal and utterly engrossing, Something about this book just pulled me in and loved every page, I heard so many great things about Gabino Iglesias on bookstagram and on Adam Cesare's youtube channel, As a Hispanic it was nice reading a horror novel by a Latinx author and from my home state, I love this book a lot, it had everything I wanted to read in a horror novel, Wow, this book packs a LOT of punch into its pages,
Billed as a 'barrio noir,' I think that term hits pretty close, There are lots of passages en Español in here, Now me personally, I took a couple of years of Spanish in high school, so I was able to figure out maybeof the nonEnglish parts.
But you know what You don't really need to understand Spanish to suss out what's being said, Context, context, context, amigos. You can tell where someone's saying someone else is a douche, or someone's praying to a saint, or someone's pining for some authentic grub.
I personally thought that this novella novelito was extremely wellwritten, and it comes with a few twists and genreflavorings that I did not at all expect.
It's impressive how much great material author Gabino Iglesias is able to fit into such a tiny book, This, his Spanglishlanguagend novel, is filled with everything from heavy doses of Santería and Yoruba religions, Mara Salvatrucha bangers that just may have a hint of demon in them, a hitman who is also an aspiring reggaeton artist, examinations of immigrant life, and a man who never blinks.
Her smile had all the power of the sun but didn't blind me, Instead, I wanted to look at it forever, to stay there and just look at her glorious face until everything around us turned to dust except our bodies.But this is a difficult one to review, I also find it difficult to summarize it without spoiling the experience for others, It's one of those books that feels like it truly deserves a second read to fully process, From page, Iglesias hit me hard, and then the book was over before I even grasped what I read, The book is engrossing though, and mixes a somber tone and moments of quiet contemplation with moments of savage, visceral violence.
There's even a hint of the fantastic, what I'll call magical noirism! Not only is about a quarter of it told in untranslated Spanish, but there is also untranslated Russian and Yoruba.
As I said, there's a lot going on in this one! Many might find it a difficult read, but it's definitely rewarding.
Give it a look, I'll wager you've probably not read anything quite like it, . .
The thing about life is that time gets between facts and memories and as memories turn into what they are, facts start sliding back, moving into a space full of images from películas and skeletons from bad dreams and imagined monstruos and stuff that someone told you.Dark, sharp, and at times incredibly brutal, I fucking LOVED IT! Full review to come, In Gabino Iglesiass barrio noir Zero Saints, expat Mexican drug dealer Fernando finds himself targeted by a gang of rival bangers from hell maybe literally from hell.
This book is getting a lot of hype, and deservedly so, Its a kick in the teeth of a crime novella, interwoven with religion and the supernatural like a TexMex John Connelly.
Moments of beauty are punctuated by scenes of quite shocking violence for someone who considers himself pretty desensitized, thats saying something.
And hey, I even picked up a little Spanish, One question, G. Whats in that fucking bucket Following Fiebre Tropical this was my second Frontera novel, or whatever they call writings covering people from South American roots living in the States that are written in a mix of English and Spanish.
Again, despite never having officially studied Spanish, I had little difficulty getting what was going down, Unlike Fiebre, pretty much a romance story, this is a real gang coming of age piece set in Austin, Texas, which certainly has its gory moments.
I appreciated the story it was telling, and there were parts I really liked, but it never really rose above just that.
I will buy and try his Coyote Songs should it jump out at me on the bookstore shelves, but only if that happens.
Iglesias really does something special within these pages, Listed as a barrio noir, and mentioned as such by the author himself, this is a crime novel like no other Ive experienced.
A taste of horror, a bit of dark magic, and sections of gorgeous prose commenting on society, life, and humanity, are just a few of the things that made this read special for me.
The mixture of Spanish and English throughout might be daunting for some, but the authenticity of the cultures and peoples depicted in this novel demand it.
Ive heard he may have another novel on the way, and IM HERE FOR IT, A ferocious book, and I learned some new words, too! Gabino Iglesias' new novel is full of Spanish thought bubbles and slang and asides that are expertly rationed and don't confuse at all.
Kind of like what Burgess did in A Clockwork Orange, maybe more like what Cypress Hill did on their Greatest Hits, but twice as murderous as either.
Context more than gets you through the language Chimera, and the author's strategy pays off big time, highlighting the dangerous, otherworldly beauty of the borderlands, especially Iglesias' bloodred Mexico, "un monstruo," which eats the unwary like popcorn, sometimes fingers first.
Violent as hell. Sad, too. I devoured it fast, before it ate me instead, .