The Past Pursues Us Like Detectives, Debt Collectors, Thieves by Juan Pablo Villalobos
Murder mystery meets migration tale in this witty new novel from Mexican author Juan Pablo Villalobos
The Past Pursues Us Like Detectives, Debt Collectors, Thieves is a black comedy that reckons with migration and belonging in the guise of a potential murder. Juan Pablo Villalobos, in a translation by Daniel Hahn, demonstrates his classic wit and penchant for the absurd, blurring the lines of genre and protagonist with its author.
At the heart of Villalobos’ novel is the existential conundrum of who gets to belong to a place, and at what cost. After years abroad, JP has returned to Lagos to help take care of his ailing parents only to find himself at the centre of an investigation into the death of his childhood nemesis. One too many beers, and decades worth of grievances, lead him to punch Everado in the middle of a busy bar after a reunion gone sour. The next morning Everardo is found dead and quickly the gossip mill puts the blame on hapless JP.
As JP tries to clear his name, he is left to reconcile a country which he has mostly kept up to date with via social media and news reports with the memories of his childhood. He is constantly reminded as an expatriate that he will never comprehend the cartel’s stronghold and Mexico’s mounting corruption.
Ultimately, JP’s path towards innocence becomes a metaphor of migration: if you leave then proving you belong to a changeable landscape will become nothing more than an absurdist odyssey.
