March 13, 2023
Lambda Literary fellow Fuentes debuts with a lush but meandering romance about a gay pastry chef returning to his native Spain. At age eight, Demetrio Simancas’s mother sent him to live with his polyamorous gay uncle in New York. Sixteen years later, in 2007, the undocumented Demetrio’s fake Social Security number raises flags when he tries to move on from his pastry chef job. Forced to return to a country he only half remembers, he meets Jacobo, an attractive, hard-partying NYU student and son of an aristocratic mother and powerful, far-right father, on the plane. Jacobo brings Demetrio, who has fallen suddenly ill, back to his estate, where he charms Jacobo’s mother, Patricia. When Jacobo, who presents as straight, finally makes a move, however, Demetrio violently rebuffs him, concerned about Jacobo’s drug habit. While sorting out his complicated feelings for Jacobo, Demetrio accepts a new kitchen job and grapples with his waning passion for cooking. The plot drifts by, with conflicts emerging and then swiftly disappearing (both Jacobo’s drug problem and his potential closeted-ness are never really resolved), on the way to an implausible conclusion. It’s got style, but it’s light on substance. Agent: Maria Cardona Serra, Aevitas.
April 15, 2023
A young pastry chef returning to Madrid after years in the U.S. becomes entangled with a wealthy Spanish NYU student in this debut novel. Demetrio has lived in New York City with no documents since he was 8 years old and has spent his entire adult life working at the same restaurant. But when, at 24, he finally pursues a more prestigious pastry chef position, his fears about his lack of papers come to fruition, and he finds himself on a plane back to a country he hardly remembers. On that trans-Atlantic flight, he connects with Jacobo, the charming scion of a right-wing businessman. A Jane Austen-esque illness strands Demetrio with Jacobo and his family once they disembark, and before long, the two are inseparable and inching toward a romance. If only the many points of tension set up along the way--Demetrio's increasing financial dependence on Jacobo, Jacobo's father's conservatism, Demetrio's uneasy position as a stranger in his nominal homeland, and the two men's growing attraction to each other--could be felt by the reader. Fuentes has an unfortunate tendency to stretch credulity on multiple fronts. The glimpses into Demetrio's artistry as a chef are surprisingly few and often underrealized, with our protagonist pursuing unlikely activities like making ganache on a beach. Jacobo never emerges as a complete human being with specific ambitions and foibles, and the novel seems uninterested in what it means for him to accept money and support from his fascist family. Demetrio's narration occasionally sparkles, but the dialogue is stilted and sometimes dated beyond the novel's 2007 setting. Opportunities for conflict arise only to disappear a handful of pages later, and by the time a surprise inclusion in a will is introduced, it has become clear that the characters are immune to meaningful consequences to their actions. What should be a thoughtfully constructed, sensuous confection falls flat.
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Starred review from April 1, 2023
Twenty-four, gay, and working at Manhattan's first Michelin three-star restaurant, Spanish American Demetrio is one of the city's finest pastry chefs. But he is undocumented and, realizing he has no future in the U.S., reluctantly decides to return to Spain. On the way, he meets an intriguing young NYU student, Jacobo, and the two are immediately attracted to each other. Nothing might have come of this development, but Demetrio falls seriously ill at the airport and Jacobo takes him to his parents' lavish Madrid penthouse, where it turns out that his mother is a countess and his father is one of the most famous businessmen in Spain. This is the cue for Demetrio to become a kind of Spanish Hamlet, agonizingly uncertain about having a relationship with a man who is so obviously from a different socioeconomic background. Nevertheless, the two begin an intense but fraught emotional relationship. It will take a tragedy, however, for that relationship to finally be defined. Fuentes' first novel is a marvel of verisimilitude with a superbly realized setting and a perfectly apposite tone. His treatment of his complex, empathetic characters is psychologically acute, and their evolving relationship is believable and always engrossing. Add the inherent element of suspense (will they stay together?) and you have a singularly successful debut. Kudos to Fuentes.
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