My Brother’s Gun

by Ray Loriga (St. Martin’s Press)
by Thomas Christian

From deep beneath the musky dungeons of the Spanish Underground and the torturing cells of the corpse of the Great Cortez, a flag has sprouted, waving westward, stamped in nouvelle vague motif and crested with Ray Loriga’s name upon it. Following a pair of works, Lo peorde todo, and Heroes, trumpets blare from castle hills where cannons once lay, heralding the arrival of Loriga’s first American release, My Brother’s Gun.

Translated to English by Kristina Cordero, Gun is the short bangbang prose of a young man’s memoir reminiscing his hero/killer brother in a high-speed race to obliteration. Big brother blows away a security guard, hijacks a class European automobile with a mascara’d beauty in the back seat, who is all too happy to trade in her money marriage boredom/whoredom and join in the merry hijinx.

“She was singing something,
Sonic Youth I think.
She made these little guitar sounds, like distorted guitars.”

The shiny stolen BMW. Killer and Heiress. Two strangers chasing death, never having been more alive. Mad Max On The Road. Great tears in the time tense. Rips in the reality fabric. Seconds are years. Moments a lifetime. And, beyond, wet grass, sparrows, sky. The Lust of Speed.

“I don’t think he knew what the hell he was doing. He just wanted to drive and drive and never go back anywhere.”

An armada of press joins the chase. A circus of cops. Violent fury. Screams. Lovers flashing, the speed of light. A hail of bullets raining down on the beach. Rounds of fire that fall the hero. The passion. The fiery flame of youth.
In life, a criminal.
In death, martyred. And forever young.