Guernica by Dave Boling Picador, HK$100
As Dave Boling notes in a brief introduction to his debut novel, the name Guernica tends to make one think of a painting by Picasso rather than the events that inspired it: the vicious destruction by the German Luftwaffe of a Basque town at the height of the Spanish civil war. Perhaps this explains why Boling, a journalist, cheekily inserts Picasso as a bit-part player in this epic tale of love, loss and flamenco dancing. Miguel Navarro is a fisherman turned rebel when he finds himself on the run from the Spanish civil guard. Winding up in Guernica, he meets the gloriously sumptuous Miren Ansotegui, a dancer so 'feathery ... deft ... fluid' she could 'dance on the lip of a wine glass'. As their affair proceeds, Boling provides glimpses of the world at large, including Picasso at his easel and the dying moments of air ace Manfred von Richtofen, the Red Baron. These insertions constantly remind the reader of the violence to come, which Winston Churchill described as 'an experimental horror'. This, in essence, was Hitler practising carpet bombing then picking off the survivors as they tried to flee. Boling is no Picasso, but his Guernica is stark, sobering and stirring.