Papelitos

by Jacques Carrié

From the ghostly depths of the punitive New York's Actors Studio to the vomited passions of West Hollywood's unending follies to the most enraging aspects of East Caracas' coming of age, Method Acting, Peaceniking and Bridge Religion keep a bizarre control on the lives of five genius characters...who soon will reunite...and party...somewhere in the ultimate plan. One must laugh--harder and harder--to really feel the pain. And Jacques Carrié provide us with the perfect tools.

Possibly the most illuminating and chilling story of eccentric moviemakers, spiteful soap opera directors, and struggling young Method Actors on and off camera ever written!

227 pages, Paperback

First published July 6, 2014

About the author

A postmodern social satirist, black humorist, and candid absurdist, Jacques Carrié keeps his readers forever mystified. No one, some people have said, writes like he does—alternating from very serious and complex to very funny and simple, from linear to non-linear, and bending, mixing, and twerking all genres into one…with a high degree of artistic flair and freedom.

His debut novel The Bridge of Movie Producer Louis King (1981) rose many eyebrows in literary circles, so did his debut collection of short stories Intrepid Visions (1985). Twenty-seven years later (a strange gap for a highly-acclaimed novelist) the trend continued with his second, even bolder and bigger, novel Octiblast (2012), Book 1 of The Octidamned Trilogy. Following this massive 800-page release came Papelitos (2014), another out-of-the-box novel. Then Hard Contacts, a wildly inventive collection of short stories, from the dark side of the soul, released on May 13, 2018. Currently Carrié is fully engaged with The French Volunteer--another massive novel focusing on the battlefield conflicts and near-impossible romance between Lieutenant Dassin and top surgery nurse Encanto during the ravaging Spanish Civil War (1936-39), resulting in millions of slaughtered innocent civilians and total destruction of Democratic Spain by rebel General Francisco Franco, his barbaric Moroccan Army of Africa, and their Axis Powers Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, the latter two equally cruel against the Allies Forces in the theater of WWII, which finally annihilated their existence. All these books deal with the human condition in the weirdest of circumstances…whether in the past, present, or future (or combinations thereof).

Jacques Carrié was born in Alès (Languedoc-Roussillon region of France) between the end of the Spanish Civil War and the beginning of World War II, getting his early education together with his brother in neighboring Toulouse. His Parisian father, Marc, a magazine entertainment columnist, then recovering from wounds from the recent war, had been a rising figure in the legendary International Brigades and the Administrator of the also famous Benicassim Medical Center, in Castellón de la Plana, Spain, where he and Pepita, his operating room best nurse (whom he eventually married) once jointly took care of an ailing newspaper correspondent and illustrious novelist named Ernest Hemingway, who needed rest for three weeks in one of the Hospital’s guest beach villas before returning to the front to cover the rest of the war. Lieutenant Carrié and Hemingway had then become buddies and great chatters of topics they shared in common, including their battlefield ambulance driving and medical unit romantic experiences.

At home and at school little Jacques and his brother continued being mystified by the confusion and misery surrounding them. Their innocent fresh start into this unwelcoming, absurd world, violently occupied by invading foreign military troops and weapons of mass destruction, made them feel unwanted, crushed, and full of rancor. It gave Jacques, at least, dozens of reasons to become a serious short story writer and novelist, unafraid to speak his mind and reveal the truth, and, like Picasso, Borges, and Buñuel before him, mold ideas, feelings, visions, and personal experiences into explosive artistic creations, if not fabulations. (The French Volunteer, a gigantic novel due out in 2020, based on his parents’ 3-year involvement in the Spanish Civil War, is both a tribute and condemnation of everything that war does to human beings.)

Such challenge commenced, however, not in Europe, but in the cragged hilltop slums of Caracas, Venezuela, and nearby piranha infested rivers of the rain forests, where he landed one day--both hardly penetrable hideouts, but necessary for protection against machete swinging death squads working for El Dictador. (All this and more soon to appear in fictional manner in Octispin, Book 2 of The Octidamned Trilogy.)

Reviews

[Ronald E Yates · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take some Kurt Vonnegut, a little of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and a lot of Jacques Carrie, mix it all together in an allegorical stew and you get Papelitos, a book so full of eclectic characters and raucous experiences that boredom never has a chance to slip into the pages.

For example, there is Bingo (Benedicto Inmaculado Nazareno Grassini Olivares--a protracted handle if ever there was one). He is born in Italy to an Italian mother and a Venezuelan father--a definitely volatile mixture of DNA. But Bingo is sent to Caracas when he is only 6, never to see his Italian mother again. His father rears Bingo until the boy is 12 then he vanishes from the boy's life.

So what does Bingo do? He heads (where else?) to Brooklyn and eventually dabbles in Method Acting--the kind of acting taught at the famous Actor's Studio of legendary mentor Lee Strasberg.

Is Bingo your typical 1950s and 1960s era struggling actor taking a bit part here and there? Not on your life. Rather than grovel for crumbs in New York and Hollywood he returns to Caracas to try his hand at television. Is he successful? Was it the right move? You will have to read the book to find out. Suffice it to say he encounters a few rough patches down there.

Rounding out the Fab Five are Anna Goldwings, Leon Goodman, Bill Maxson, and Irene Appleton. Then there is producer Louis King--who is just on the perimeter.

There is nothing linear about this book. Like its characters, it vaults all over the place, never daring to settle in one spot for very long; always leading the reader through a surfeit of unexpected turns and down one enigmatic road after another.

But one thing Papelitos does do is take you into the extraordinary and strange world of acting, cattle calls, auditions, the predictable bouts and shouts of creative divergence, high flying egos and the depths of self-doubt and human vulnerability.

For example, here is Carrie describing Leon Goodman:

"He was a university man. An authority on classroom stuff. A desk-and-blackboard genius. A shrinker of books and library journals.

"He was also a master of his slide-rule and as broadminded as any multiple-choice test had allowed him to be. He could in fact be a Ph.D. candidate. And more! But had he ever tried to realize that Hollywood also pumped blood from inside? That those plastic faces melted at times?"

And even more revealing is Leon thinking about being an actor--thoughts that ring as true today as when he was thinking them in the 1960s and 1970s.

"An actor is a very fragile person whose happiness depends entirely on the happiness he's able to produce in the people he's entertaining. Every actor has a tremendous storage of energy which builds up in direct relation to his desire for pleasing people, so they in turn can love and admire him. But his urge to love and be loved must be massive. In its perfect form it must be universal."

Then there is the Peruvian-like suspension bridge leading through the woods to producer Lewis King's gated Upper Hollywood Hills mansion. At a gathering inside the mansion King announces a new film entitled "A Fistful of S***" that he wants to make in Italy.

By the way, that suspension bridge plays a pivotal role in Papelitos, but that is as much as I am going to say.

Then there is Bingo...languishing in a Caracas prison for attacking a director for being an idiot. A year later he is out and on his way back to L.A. for a reunion with the rest of the Fab Five and possibly a role in a "Fistful of S***."

But first there is, for want of a better word, a kind of pre-production orgy at producer Louis King's mansion. Will Fistful of S*** ever get made? Will Bingo and Bill and Anna and Irene and Leon ever become successful and renowned?

Or will they remain more infamous than famous; more notorious than celebrated?

You will have to read this wonderfully bizarre, off the wall book to find out. In the meantime, one can only wonder what new adventures author Jacques Carrie is conjuring up for the denizens of West Hollywood and environs.

[Bob Laerhoven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Papelitos is definitely not a middle-of-the-road read. The novel is filled to the brim with a fascinating, voluptuous story that sends the reader careening to and fro in a satiric roller-coaster ride. I won't divulge much of the capricious and ironic - though at times also deeply moving - story, set in the ego-driven world of actors and directors. A novel like this interacts with the reader in a special, intimate way and too much analysis could injure its marvel. The audacity of the storyline reminded me a bit of "Cloud Atlas" from David Mitchell. The stories in those two novels are hugely different, but just like Mitchell, Jacques Carrié erases boundaries between genres without visible effort. He juggles with enviable ease different storylines and wields a unique style. "Papelitos" commands attention and when the reader is prepared to give that attention (to details, to storylines, to the sometimes strange, but elegant use of words, etc...), he's in for a literary feast that can best be enjoyed slowly.