Love, fury, and old age: Escombros by Fernando Vallejo

This essay analyzes the representation of homosexual love in two elderly characters: Fernando and David, highlighting the particular characteristics in the fictional universe of Fernando Vallejo: humor, disenchantment, social criticism, homosexuality, and tenderness. Based on Reinaldo Arenas’ humor theory and the self-fiction of Diana Diaconu and jointly with Fernando Rada and Walter Giribuela’s eroticism in old age is proposed that the novel Escombros manifests a contrast in the narrative voice. To highlight the fury when describing the earthquake of 2017 in Mexico City as well as to emphasize the mourning and affection when it comes to the life of the protagonists as a couple, before and after the catastrophe.