Besora’s short novel is catnip to the likes of me. It’s so beguiling in its surrealism, excessiveness, silliness and obscenities that I can’t help but fall head-over-heels in love with it. I know I should be casting a critical eye over the book’s lurid scenes of nonsense involving mutant hamsters, alien invasions, cures for baldness, obsessions with Nosferatu (Le Fanu, of course) and the proper pronunciation of “bacon” in Neo-Catalan, but I’m utterly in its thrall. I love The Fake Muse, and I think it loves me.

The Fake Muse is broken into three sections. The first part consists of a series of personality or dating profiles, a rogues gallery of characters, including the members of the Holofernes family, a household so dysfunctional that the term “dysfunctional” loses all meaning in close proximity to them. The second section is framed as a play. It features many of the characters we meet in the first part. It takes their bizarre stories and ups the ante, adding a neo-noir gloss (just for the laughs). In the third section, Besora is interviewed by one of his characters because, of course, he is.**

Besora doesn’t just set out to offend; he sets out to interrogate why he’s so interested in depicting the taboo, whether it be incest, Nazi sects and the objectification of women. Why be repulsive? asks a fictional critic*** Why upset people? Why not write about post-war Spain instead!?!?!

If that’s all too self-reflexive and pretentious for you, don’t worry because The Fake Muse also FEATURES A MUTANT HAMSTER WHO QUOTES FAMOUS DEAD AUTHORS AND SHOOTS LASER BEAMS FROM ITS EYES ****

I’m not going to fall into the trap of saying, “The Fake Muse won’t be for everyone.” The world has become a clown show. ***** As far as I’m concerned, we need more books like The Fake Muse written by novelists who take the piss out of literature, out of themselves, out of the reader. 

My full review of The Fake Muse (with a couple more swear words) will appear in the March edition of Locus.

 *Who, by the by, introduces himself in Part One with a personality profile, which is laugh out loud on the train funny to the extent they get out their phones, film you, and put it on TikTok

**Part Three reminded me of the final story in Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte (review forthcoming). Besora does it better.

***That’s not me imagining a critic. Besora has this whole bit where a critic/famous person/judge asks him, Besora, why he writes such horrific stuff.

****The hamster also writes a philosophical tract on self-realisation for animal-kind. But that’s not as interesting as the LASER BEAMS!!!!

*****I love the sort of fiction aimed at frightening us into action. Stephen Markley’s The Deluge is a nightmare-inducing banger. Sadly, I don’t think it moves the needle. All it provides is a blueprint of what’s to come.