J.T.K Belle
Carlos The Impossible
language
(Picklefish Press July 14, 2010)
The world's greatest matador vs. the unkillable bull of Tlaxcala. A love story. (From the archives of McSweeney's Quarterly #39)In this lyrical and haunting tale, set in Mexico City and environs, Hernando, the greatest matador of La Fiesta Brava, confronts Carlos, the impossibly large bull. Their series of fights, dubbed 'The Spectacle Without End', draws them together through an endless series of stalemates. Bound by fate in a never-ending corrida, Hernando seeks only redemption, while Carlos seeks only his elusive querencia. In turns comic and tragic, that which ties these adversaries together grows ever faster, as each lives to fight another day, and another, and another.
Like a Ferdinand for grown-ups, J.T.K. Belle's stunning debut novella, Carlos The Impossible, is a sort of love story: part tall tale, part sad, sly amusement, and part subtle, comic fable - all rolled together in the narrowing distance between a man and a bull.