Críticas Magazine

Adriana V. Lopez

Boris Izaguirre's Diamond Life
August 3, 2008

I recently got a hold of last year's Premio Planeta finalist, Villa Diamante (Diamond Villa, Planeta, 2007) by Boris Izaguirre.  A novel with all the glam and frivolity of a telenovela, but with a structure that aims to be as intricate as any Latin American novel a la Gabo. But what´s interesting about this particular literary prize winner is that I already knew about its author from watching television. No, not Bookspan. The bad kind, like daytime gossip shows. While living in Madrid I took a liking to a show called Channel nº4  (a play on the perfume by Coco Channel) that starred the now 42-year-old Izaguirre, a team of gossiping women and a former Pedro Almodóvar transvestite starlet. But at its center was Izaguirre, the flaming gay Venezuelan expat who had reconquered Spain as the show´s decadent ring leader. He would squeal and shake his booty in excitement when a Paulino Rubio song was blasted over the studio´s sound system, sport a Chester cat grin when conspiring about the Penelope Cruz and Javier Barden hook up last summer. And though this showman put his best Prada shoe forward along with his perfectly timed quips disguised in cotton candy airiness, you always knew there was a fast motor running in that pretty head of his. In the world of serious, chin-scratching manly men of literature, Izaguirre is a rarity and a trailblazer. A South American Truman Capote, who socializes with the jet set and then stores the juicy tidbits away for future material whether for use on the boobtube or literary salons.

Before he got to Spain in the 80´s, he worked in his native Caracas writing a society column for Caracas´ El Nacional in his teens and then became a scriptwriter for Venezuelan telenovelas. In an interview with GatoPardo magazine Izaguirre said when he was young, and in a New York café, he met with Venezuelan socialite Sofía Ímber, curator for that said country´s museum of contemporary art. Her advice to him was to leave Venezuela fast. Why? Because there he´d be just another, but abroad he could be a great homosexual of the world. When he landed in Spain he continued writing scripts for popular soaps like Rubí Rebelde and La dama de rosa and ultimately landed a spot on the show Crónicas marcianas (Martian Chronicles) dishing celebrity gossip. But all the while, he was privately writing his books. When he began showing his bookish side to the world in the late 90´s, with tall tales about the rich and the beautiful, they were critically received the way you would expect any media celebrity turned author to be treated: terribly. But after seven books, Izaguirre finally figured out the formula and Villa Diamante is a bit Manuel Puig meets Venezuelan dramedy. A likeable, lush and bitchy novel about a breath taking Venezuelan mansion and two sisters, (yup, one´s ugly, one´s gorgeous) who fall in love with the same man. Indulge yourself.

Boris Izaguirre´s essays and fiction:

·  Azul petróleo (Gasoline Blue, Espasa, 1998) Novel

·  Morir de glamour (To Die from Glamour, Espasa, 2000) Essay

·  Verdades alteradas (Altered Truths, Espasa, 2001) Essay

·  1965 (Espasa, 2002) Novel

·  Fetiche (Fetish, Espasa, 2003) Essay

·  El armario secreto de Hitchcock (Hitchcock´s Secret Closet, Espasa, 2005) Essay

·  El vuelo de los avestruces (The Flight of the Ostriches, Alpha Decay, 2006) Novel

·  Villa Diamante (Diamond Villa, Planeta, Premio Planeta finalist, 2007) Novel

Posted by Adriana V. Lopez on August 3, 2008 | Comments (0)