FRAMING A HORRIFIC NOVEL

A STORY IN BLOOD

- ALFRED A. YUSON

Once you come across the line — “The scent of her perfume came through, that one he particularly disliked, a hollow mimicry of unknown flowers.” — you quickly realize you’re reading fiction of unusual to uncanny quality. No, it won’t be about romance or anything remotely erotic.

The early intrigue forewarns acceptance that the “he” involved is no male lover, but a mystifying version of a dog.

Scents and smells pervade the descriptive starting chapters of Iro: A Story in Blood by Angelo R. Lacuesta, published by Milflores. The olfactory design of elite private territory bordered by dark forest overwhelms geography, terrain, heritage, and all the principal inhabitants that are paraded as major characters.

The fictive community is the municipality of Kidapalong in the province of Cuambong “in their neck of Mindanao off Davao.” Here the Mallaris have ruled the roost as rice barons spawning a dynasty of politicians who have trucked with Spanish colonizers, revolutionaries, the Americans, Japanese occupiers, and various other protagonists as overlords on both the regional and national levels—through cycles of NPA rebellion, concerns over Moro uprisings, coastal smugglers, Martial Law, changes of command in the military and police.

Except for a blip when they lost a mayoralty for a term, the Mallaris have conducted themselves adroitly as hacendero patrons while engaging in religious tradition and allowing the folkloric mindset that governs curious lower mythology; read familiars.