Leche laps up the craziness of Philippine life

Leche, Coffee House Press, 2011.

These past few weeks I have been reading Leche, the latest novel by Filipino-American writer R. Zamora Linmark. That statement may be an unfair one, though, because it really shouldn’t take anyone too long to finish the novel. It’s an easy read—the prose is pacey and the action always interesting. Even I didn’t take more than five or six sittings to read its entirety. If it took me several weeks, it’s only because I was working on a few other projects on top of the usual demands of work (work always gets in the way of the more interesting stuff) and chores and errands.

One thing, though, that struck me while reading Leche is that for a Pinoy in America like me, it’s almost impossible to have an objective review of the novel (assuming an objective review is possible). What I mean is, for me the novel, in describing contemporary Philippine life, brings up my own memories and associations of that life as I lived it not too long ago. When it mentions, for instance, Harrison Plaza, the Pasay City mall, I think of one of the hallowed places of my childhood. Growing up in a small town in Bikol in the late 1970s and early ’80s, I had heard that malls were the places to go whenever you were in Manila. And sure enough whenever we were in town we headed for Harrison Plaza, along, it seemed, with everyone else in the city. My thoughts tended to drift along these lines when I saw it mentioned in Leche.

Or when the novel brings up Quiapo or Cubao, I often get lost in my own reverie and recollection of those places. “That was my haunt, too” or “I know that” was often what I ended up thinking when I came across those places in the novel.

In other words, I have a bit of a predicament (I hesitate to call it a problem) reading Leche because as a Pinoy in America, I am always longing for home: I read Linmark’s work and I see not only the narrative he’s telling but my own, too. I doubt I would have this reaction if I were reading this in Quezon City.

Making things even more interesting is that Leche is a homecoming novel. Objective review? Forget about it. But, like I said, it’s still an enjoyable read—funny for the riotous adventures that Vince, the main character, goes through as he rediscovers his homeland, and poignant for the ending.

One way to describe the novel is that it’s exactly how someone like Vince—a Filipino-American who hasn’t seen the Philippines in 13 years—might find his return to the Philippines: part self-discovery, part cultural immersion, all adventure.

The journey begins when Vince packs his bag for the Philippines after he places second in a Mr. Pogi contest in Hawaii—a beginning worthy, one might say, of a trip to a pageant- and pageantry-crazy country like the Philippines.

In Manila, he meets celebrities like Kris Aquino, Bino Boca and Sister Marie, as well as a bevy of minor but memorable characters. There is, for instance, Burrnadette, his Taglish-speaking maid for the week that he is in town, who eventually would point him where he must go to complete his journey; Tita G., the colorful and gay manager of Leche (a Malate nightclub) who seems to have the skinny on everything from the Marcoses to Philippine wartime history; and the many men Vince flirts with throughout the novel (Vince himself is gay).

As to be expected of an “Amboy” gifted with good looks, Vince gains entrance into a Manila society peopled by the likes of Kris Aquino (presidential daughter, movie star and talk-show host), Bino Boca (crusading filmmaker), and Sister Marie (feminist, activist, nun, actress), and briefly becomes the toast of that society as symbolized by his appearance on Kris Aquino’s talk show, but finds that he doesn’t belong there.

He doesn’t belong anywhere, he realizes, in the Philippines. Instead he frequently reaches out to his siblings in Hawaii via the postcards he sends them, and his mind drifts back to his past—his childhood in San Vicente and his Lolo Al, the one person, we learn, whom he has any emotional connection to. So in the end, he goes back to San Vicente to—as Burrnadette counsels—“bury” his grandfather, but, more importantly, to complete his journey.

Here we see about the only somber moments in the novel. He finds his family’s old house, enters it, goes through the rooms, and finds nothing.

“Back in the living room, he goes and stands by the window, an unlit cigarette in his hand, looking out at the white sheets and towels hanging on the clothesline; at the church steeple, and beyond it, at the Sierra Madre that gave birth to the legend of the four women who had turned their backs on San Vicente; looking, just looking at the coming darkness the way his grandfather, on the same spot, used to sit on his favorite cane-backed chair, listening to the radio and smoking Marlboro Reds in his pajamas with his legs crossed, his foot tapping against his slipper, watching dusk as it claimed San Vicente light by light.”

It is clear that Linmark’s intention in the novel is to portray Manila and by extension, the Philippines, as a strange place where things are not always what they seem, and where the unreal is real (and vice versa). This seems to be the effect for instance, when rumors and gossip (such as those told about the Marcoses or showbiz personalities) are treated as truth by the characters. “Oh my Lord, hijo,” Tita G. tells Vince. “You’re in the Philippines. Everyone here speaks in subtitles. What is said is a translation of what can be.”

Even the non-linear approach to storytelling—the narrative is punctuated by dream sequences, flashbacks, “tips for tourists” breakouts and Vince’s postcards to his siblings in Hawaii—enhances the portrayal of Manila as a place that really is pretty much what you make it, where there are multiple realities co-existing all at once, where the past is still present, and where the keys to unlocking the present can be found in the past.

Of course, it helps that the Philippines is already such a place to begin with. Linmark in some cases simply has to record the strange things he sees, such as the colorful names for some of the more quirky elements of contemporary Philippine life. Manila’s street foods, for example: “Adidas,” “IUD” and “Walkman”—“Does National Geographic know about this?” Linmark asks. “The Discovery Channel?” Or movie titles (for instance, the only slightly altered “God, Help Us: The Magdalena Ortiz Tragedy”).

You can’t out-magic-realist the already magic-realist, Linmark seems to say. Thus even Kris Aquino remains Kris Aquino.

If Leche had a sexuality, Linmark said in an interview, it would be “’queer,’ neither straight nor gay.” I think the same can be said of his subject.

On the cover of the novel is a jeepney—not a real jeepney, but what seems to be the rusted out incarnation of the toy model commonly found in Manila gift shops. It seems to echo the novel’s portrayal of the Philippines as a place that fools the eye.

To use the analogy, though, if Leche were a jeepney ride, it wouldn’t be a straight one that takes you from Point A to Point B, but more like a “special” trip, as Filipinos would call it, a trip where you charter the vehicle so you could go wherever you want. Sure enough, it takes Vince through Manila’s labyrinthine districts and neighborhoods and gives him a whiff of the city’s soot and smoke, its odors, but also its gaiety and history. It’s a special trip that in the end succeeds in delivering Vince—the rudderless balikbayan—to his past.