There are many animals in the 17 stories of Volverán como fuego (Random House) by Ayesha L. Rubio, but none stand out as much as the snake. "In Native American cultures, the snake symbolizes transformation and progress. It propels people forward. In Christianity, the snake means the opposite: it is sin, evil. Snakes appear a lot in this book, and it is a conscious decision. They guide the characters in both directions, helping them move forward and paralyzing them," says Rubio, an illustrator, author of children's literature, and debut storyteller for adult audiences.
Her stories are about the United States and are connected by its landscapes and inhabitants, not by its animals, but they begin and end with two fables of coyotes, crows, turtles, and snakes that speak with the gods, witness the arrival of men in America, and see them off on a plane in the end. In between, Rubio creates a collage of characters condemned to a common destiny: they arrive, try to put down roots but fail, try to leave but can't find a way, and despair, as if that were the unhappy essence of the U.S.: to leave or burn, as the song goes.
"There are always people leaving in the book. It has been like that since I wrote the first story traveling from Los Angeles to Tucson. I wanted Volverán como fuego to be a circular journey, the eternal journey of a migrant marked by uprooting, by the search for a place to settle and call home. In the first part of the book, the characters arrive, in the second part, they live with others who can't find their place. In the last part, they find themselves trapped by a society that rejects them and feel the need to escape," says Rubio.
Volverán como fuego is a collection full of snakes, storms, and scents, in other words, of symbolism; it is also a hyper-realistic text, full of place names and brand names, and at the same time, it references songs by Buddy Holly, Ella Fitzgerald, Nirvana, and Tom Waits... and a thousand clichés of American popular culture that appear here as expressionist images. "There is hyper-realism and fable, there is a spirit of oral tradition, of imaginaries that come from Native cultures and Christian religion," Rubio explains. And all those images that seem taken from 90s MTV? "I have had that American imagery in my eyes since I was young. I lived there and discovered that the imagery exists, that it is real. It feels like you are on a movie set. The roads where a storm bursts upon you... That happened to me on the way to Wisconsin. I thought: wow, here the sky is so immense and seems so close, expressing the religious feeling in the Midwest. And, at the same time, it felt like there was a snake underground, watching."
Where does a book like this come from? "I spent three years in Oregon, but I also had friends who were my family in Arizona. When I returned to Spain, I had a strong need to reflect on those years and on migration. What conclusion did I reach? Uprooting was the idea I held onto. And the contrast in how people live there. There isn't much of a middle class sense. The first time I was there, I traveled for two months along the West Coast. It was during the Trump and Hillary Clinton campaign. In San Francisco, at a bus station, there was a screen. Trump appeared on the screen, and a homeless lady started insulting him. I thought it was impossible for that man to win. I still don't understand how we got to this point... Now I have returned to Madrid after many years. And for the first time in my life, I feel like I am putting down roots."