Amid the poverty of Manila in the 1970s, eleven-year-old Gringo comes of age as he struggles to understand the behavior of his family and friends. Why does his father take out his frustrations of not being able to join Gringo’s Aunt Dolores in America by regularly beating his wife and oldest son? What does it mean that his older brother is most happy dressing up in his mother’s clothes and pretending he’s a Miss Universe contestant? It’s only when Gringo’s godmother tells him about an act of violence in the past that still resonates in the present that he understands how time has a way of answering even unspoken questions. The lie Gringo ends up telling in order to spare his brother more shame leads to a bittersweet ending that demonstrates to Gringo that some sorrows can never be forgotten or actions forgiven. A wrenching first novel filled with the sights, sounds, and smells of Manila under Martial Law—Nancy Pearl. American Library Association.
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The streets of Manila in the 1970s are brought to life in all their teeming glory in Bino A. Realuyo’s evocative first novel, The Umbrella Country. Eleven year old Gringo lives in a cramped apartment with his father, Daddy Groovie; his mother, Estrella; and his older brother, Pipo. Fascinated by the bustling street life, Gringo tells of a neighborhood where escaping to America is a dream, and poverty and brutality are the reality. Daddy Groovie is often unemployed and spends his time hanging around with other unemployed men, venting his frustrations on Estrella and Pipo. Estrella moves through each chapter like a shadow, never letting her children or her husband imagine her true feelings, while Pipo, who has a penchant for wearing women’s clothes, lives in a fantasy world where he is the belle of the ball. The locals in the neighborhood all have nicknames that indicate their profession or personality traits. There is Boy Spit, who, natural, spits; Boy Manicure, who owns the local beauty parlor; and Big Boy Jun, who is his father’s junior. In each chapter, the rich details of the confusing business of growing up are explored with careful respect, judiciously tempered with humor.
In one of the lighter moments, Gringo and Pipo engage some of the neighborhoods boys in a game of Miss Unibers, a pretend version of the glamorous Miss Universe pageant, a local obsession. In these funny yet touching moments, a freedom of expression surfaces in a city controlled by nightly curfew. The easy times are few and far between, and when Pipo is brutally raped by Boy Manicure, the harsh light of the grown-up world reveals itself to Gringo and forces him to grow up too quickly.
The book’s
title refers to the habit of Manila residents to carry an umbrella
whether it is raining or sunny, as if to avoid the unpredictability
of life’s problems. For Gringo and his family, however, the umbrella
offers little protection. Kelly
Ruden, Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers.
Goodbye, Manila . . . Debut novelist Bino A. Realuyo’s The Umbrella Country is reminiscent of the relationship between the two brothers in Jose Rizals classic Noli Me Tangere. Pipo, the elder, who helps organize skits of “Miss Unibers” beauty contest with neighborhood boys in drag, is learning about his homosexuality. Gringo, the younger, is sensitive and diffident. They both cling to their mother, who tries in vain to protect them from their ne’er-do-well father, Daddy Groovie (nicknamed for his obsession with the United States.) The father regularly beats Pipo, who in turn gravitates to the home of the local hairdresser, where he engages in the homosexual activity that Gringo tries to hide. In the end, Daddy Groovie gets hi s wish to leave Manila, and though he sends for the rest of the family, Mommy tricks the two brothers into emigrating without her. This is a harsh tale salted with dialog in three languages. Harold Augenbraum, Word of Mouth.
A lyrical first novel limns a troubled coming-of-age in 1970s Manila, where deviance and difference are punished by silence or brutality. Eleven-year-old Gringo, an observant child who spends long hours watching the neighborhood from an upstairs window, narrates the story of his Manila childhood. He is perhaps too adult and perceptive for his age--but these are common failings of the genre, redeemed here by the eloquence of the writing. The family is poor and unhappy. The father, Daddy Groovie, often unemployed, dreams only of escaping to America, where his sister lives; the mother, Estrella, her feelings tightly suppressed, got married only because she was pregnant; one-year-older brother Pipo, of whom Gringo is extraordinarily protective, likes to dress in women's clothes and has thrice been crowned ""Miss Unibers"" in childhood versions of the beauty pageant; and when he's drunk, Daddy Groovie beats Pipo and Estrella while Gringo looks on helplessly. The neighbors don't intervene either, Manila being a place where umbrellas are carried both in rain and sun as a means of protection from what is best neither seen nor known. Gringo has had to grow up fast: After Pipo is brutally raped by Boy Manicure, the owner of the street's Beauty Parlor, Gringo helps him clean up; an older acquaintance shows Gringo the hideout where Pipo is coupling with other young gays; and when Boy is murdered by an unknown adult, Gringo confesses that it was his shorts, not Pipo's, that police found on the premises. Daddy Groovie gets his visa and, once settled in the US, sends for his family, but only the boys will go: Estrella belongs in Manila. Gringo's responsibilities for his brother must continue. Sometimes overwrought, but even so an evocative and subtly different take on the loss of innocence. A promising debut.
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