Fatal attractions

Making Love in Spanish is the first published novel of B. Wiser, aka Bambina Olivares Wiser, and it comes from the imprint of Anvil Publishing. She has lived in several countries, and has worked in advertising, luxury brand management, and public relations. She contributes to several international publications, focusing mainly on fashion, travel, and lifestyle coverage. She is back in Manila after an extended absence. Excerpts from our conversation:

DR: Is this fiction?

BW: Yes, it is fiction. It took one year to write, with lots of revision.

DR: And the male characters? Some of them are mean, but the Latino driver seems yummy [Laughter]

BW: They are composites of different people, actually. On the copyright page, I wrote: “To exes who feel they have been alluded to, get over yourselves. You’re being completely delusional.”

DR: And the husband seems like a terrible man.

BW: Well, he could have been more terrible if this were real life…

DR: Did you plan the novel to be the Philippine version of 50 Shades of Gray?

BW: No, there was no such intention.

DR: Actually, you write much better than the author of 50 Shades of Gray. You did something new in Philippine literature – hauled it right into the 21st century, with a woman expressing explicit sexual desire.

BW: Did I? That is good. I wrote a previous novel, where I showed sex as a power thing. It was a different book from Making Love in Spanish.

DR: What was the response to Making Love in Spanish?

BW: Well, those who read it said they liked it and found it funny. But one elderly lady I saw walked over to me and said, “Bambina, hija, I can still teach you a thing or two even after I read your novel.”

DR: See? This country is only conservative on the surface. So much more happens beneath the surface. Who are the writers you admire?

BW: I like Ohman Pamuk,. Rosa Montero, Arturo Perez-Reverte.

DR: New York City seems like another character in the novel. An energetic character.

BW: Yes, New York is full of energy.

DR: “I Dwell in Possibility,” Maxine said in your novel, quoting Emily Dickinson.

BW: Yes, that is indeed New York. Full of possibilities.

DR: Are you staying in Manila or just passing through?

BW: Maybe just passing through. It’s difficult to find men who can give good conversation here. We will see.

DR: Do you still read poetry? We were classmates in Modern Poetry class in Ateneo.

BW: Yes we were.

DR: And also in the late Fr. Bernad’s Shakespeare class. Did you know that Fr. Galdon has also died? [Bambina becomes teary-eyed]

BW: He was one of my favorite teachers.

DR: We were walking out of the cafeteria one day when the leaves began to fall. I looked at Fr. Galdon and I said, “Margaret, are you grieving?” And he continued, “Over goldengrove, unleaving?”

BW: I like the poems of Hopkins.

DR: What about Edna St. Vincent Millay?

BW: I still do, [and she proceeds to recite “Love is not meat nor drink…]

But meat and drink, on the other hand, punctuates Making Love in Spanish, the debut novel of B. Wiser. It begins with an epigraph from Count Leo Tolstoy, thus: “One can only live while one is intoxicated with life.”

And so it is, in this novel with its memorable dramatis personae. Maxine is a “divorced, single mom approaching fifty, with three daughters. Globalization personified: born and raised in Manila of mixed Filipino-Spanish parentage, educated in Paris, has lived all over the world, speaks several languages, and works as a media consultant. Currently based in Johannesburg but travels frequently for work and adventure. Fatally attracted to Latinos.”

Emilio is the Brooklyn Boy, the 25-year-old Dominican driver who is “sexy as hell.” He is studying at the community college and wants to be a police detective.

This one is worse: “Dex, short for Despicable, Dodgy Ex-Husband. British banker specializing in debt reconstructing but whose real area of expertise is bitterness and condescension. Still clinging to the glory of Empire.”

This one I like: “Albert, Colombian-Scottish-Chinese hybrid architect. The first real love of Maxine’s life. Although professing love for her, he was committed to another.”

And this one is possibly for you: “Pablo, a Venezuelan toe-sucker.”

Maxine’s friends are happy and gay, providing the warm glow of company. And the family is familiar, the most memorable being Helena Rodriguez: “Spanish, imperious, bigoted and selectively conservative, but fortunately still enjoys travelling and needs a constant companion while doing so, a task for which Maxine happily volunteers her services.”

When I asked Bambina if Helena Rodriguez is patterned after her own mother, the unforgettable Ninez Cacho-Olivares who defied the Marcos regime, she just gave me an enigmatic smile.

And the father, in true balanced fashion, is “a man who’s all heart, with no ego and sadly, no memory” as well.

The novel may be sizzling with sex, but it skewers the country as well, with its laser-like insight. When asked by her father to come home, Maxine ruminates: “Go back? To where? To my vaguely Spanish-speaking, English language-mangling little tropical country in the middle of Asia, where the beaches were splendid but the traffic was crippling, where the people were warm but life was generally uninspiring, twenty-four-hour servants and chauffeurs notwithstanding? My country, the shining example of feudal democracy in the twentieth century, people power be damned.”

There are many other snappy one liners here (“In lust, we trust”) and situations that are supposedly sexy but really satirical of the night life, of gender roles, of life on the wing. But what stays with the reader are the chapter on Alberto, New York of 1988, tinged with bittersweet nostalgia. Or the chapter on Emilio in Brooklyn, with “Cougar Bonnie and Under-aged Clyde,” stolen kisses and all, alive with the possibilities of hope.

These are cold and rainy nights. Making Love in Spanish – with its hot topic, memorable prose, and combustible humor – will provide good company.

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