Fabián Casas: fatherhood, bruxism and other pitfalls

Fabián Casas isn't running a race. He takes his time publishing. Eight years passed between his novel Titanes del coco and the next, El parche caliente . It took him another eight to return to poetry with Últimos poemas en prozac . The same thing happened with his short stories. Fifteen years later, first in Eloísa Cartonera and then in this expanded edition published by Emecé, came A Series of Unfortunate Stories .

The latest work by the author of Ode and Leisure, among others, is less than 100 pages long. But, despite any prejudice, the depth of these stories is inversely proportional to their length. In the prologue, an addition to this edition, Casas tells how this anthology came about, a sort of fortuitous recollection of lost papers. When writer Osvaldo Aguirre requested a short story to publish in a magazine, he found himself with several discarded works from previous books. This, coupled with a film he had seen at the time with his children, inspired him to write the title of this book and rounded out the concept.

This introduction includes some more insights into the personality of this figure of 90s poetry and screenwriter, who seems never to stop, but rather to seek a state of permanent availability. There, he shares his longing to empty himself, to erase himself until "the personal dissolves," something he once called "the strange voice." He also reveals his interest in short stories, and he set out to write them almost like someone attending a literary workshop: based on instructions.

The scene that opens this book is curious. He sits in the middle of his bed, surrounded by his children, who are playing with Chinese dragons. This is how he writes. It goes against what Ricardo Piglia said, which prompted responses from Fogwill, about fatherhood. “You don't have to have children to have 100 percent free time for your literary project,” Piglia said. “You have to write with your children in tow,” Fogwill countered. In this, Casas seems closer to the latter.

Turning to short stories, "The Archons" presents a rural setting with a sleepy, joint-smoking character who brings strange visions to life. In "The Shining," starring Andrés Stella, Casas 's alter ego, he accompanies his wife to a wedding. Everything is narrated with irony and aplomb. In "Bruxism," friendship, a recurring theme, appears, along with the transformation that comes with becoming a father. "The Shroud" is the story of Picasso, a character who appears in the novel Leisure, who earned his nickname not because of the famous Spanish artist, but because he was prone to taking any kind of drug. "The Little Prince" is narrated by a child with hydrocephalus. Here, the strange voice emerges with greater power in one of the most accomplished pieces, in terms of dramatic tension, warmth of dialogue, and emotion.

A short piece, "The Cleaning," which narrates in an autobiographical tone the exhumation of his mother in the Chacarita Cemetery, may initially reveal a certain lack of polish. Or perhaps it is on this "flaw" that the impact of the final scene rests. Sometimes critics burn their own textbooks. In Casas , what fails, what seemed out of place, makes sense. And originality, according to him, is overrated: "It's better to steal the mental operation than the rhetoric of the admired writer," he concludes.

A Series of Unfortunate Stories , Fabián Casas. Emecé, 88 pages.