Perfect Days by Raphael Montes - book review: Unsubtle stalking tale is the poor man's 'The Collector'

Translated from the Portuguese by Alison Entrekin, this is a strange book, not least because of the sometimes-faltering prose

Lucy Scholes
Monday 22 February 2016 17:50 GMT
Comments

“Why do you write such violent things? Try to write a love story,” Brazilian author Raphael Montes's mother apparently responded after reading his first novel (about a suicide pact between nine students). Perfect Days – his second novel and the first to be published in English – he explains in the acknowledgments, “is the result of her request”, and I would love to have been a fly on the wall while she was reading it as I suspect Montes's take on romance isn't at all what his mother had in mind.

Alarm bells start ringing on the very first page when we learn that medical student Teo's only friend is Gertrude, the cadaver he's dissecting in anatomy class. He's young, talented, and clearly a psychopath. Learned behaviour gets him by, a good morning kiss to his mother's forehead, for example. But really, “He didn't like anyone, have feelings for anyone, or miss anyone: he just lived.” Until, that is, he meets Clarice. Wild, spontaneous, and an aspiring screenwriter, she's everything the “rational, determined, methodical” Teo isn't, and he's smitten. The feeling, unfortunately, isn't mutual. Not that Teo's going to let a little bump in the road like that put him off.

A recent piece in The Atlantic argues that rom coms have a tendency to normalise some pretty creepy courtship rituals, stalking being top of the list, but Andrew Lincoln's character in Love Actually has nothing on Montes's love-struck anti-hero. Before we know it he's bashed Clarice over the head and stuffed her bleeding, unconscious body in a suitcase, the secluded writing retreat she's got planned presenting the fortuitously timed opportunity for Teo to win her over, the magic of those heady honeymoon days helped along by a ready supply of sedative and a pair of handcuffs.

It's a strange book, not least because of the sometimes-faltering prose – possibly intentional or perhaps something is lost in translation – leaves the overall impression of a poor man's version of John Fowles' The Collector. What was disturbing in that novel, including the interplay between Clegg and his victim, is transformed into a less nuanced portrait of obsession that relies heavily on graphic violence to shock, rather than the creepy chill of psychological games.

At the same time, there are glimpses of something else going on beneath the surface; the twists and turns owing a debt to the implausible plots of soap operas, and the sporadic references to fairy tales hinting at the possibility of nothing being quite what it seems.

Harvill Secker £15.99. Order for £13.99 (free p&p) from the Independent Bookshop: 08430 600 030

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in