Bringing back magic and myth

“TELL THE STORY. Make a song,” is how Filipino novelist Erwin E. Castillo concludes his preface to the new edition of The Firewalkers. In it, he details how the novel arose in 1992 “while the country tried to rearrange itself, but not too much, and not really.”

Now re-published by local press Exploding Galaxies — the third in its collection of reprinted, forgotten Filipino classics — The Firewalkers is an epic filled with magic and murder. Set in 1913 in the mountain town of Lakambaga, Cavite, it opens with police sergeant Gabriel Diego faced with a series of mysterious deaths, connected with otherworldly ancestors, mythical monsters, and cowboys that roam the land.

This edition also includes a companion piece, “The Watch of La Diane,” which serves as a postlude. The story is set and written in the 1970s, following two lovers who set off across America.

“Most of my grandchildren — bright, tech-savvy, world-traveled cosmopolitans — will be strangers in the world of The Firewalkers and ‘The Watch of La Diane.’ They will be unsure, uncomfortable, vulnerable. But I hope I’ve designed the funhouse, the labyrinth, well enough to lure them in, so they may experience their moment screaming above the abyss, to be able to later declare, ‘I am escaped to tell thee,’” said Mr. Castillo in his official statement.

At the launch of the new edition on Sept. 27, he detailed the long and winding road of his career, from his days writing for The Philippines Free Press, where his mentor Nick Joaquin served as editor-in-chief, to his writing fellowship in the US (and later opting out of getting a green card), to his career as an ad man in the 1980s.

“When The Firewalkers was first published in 1992, it was already five years after EDSA. Time was passing by so quickly. It seemed important then to show, ‘no, we did not stop writing; no, we never stopped trying to learn to write.’ That was 33 years ago,” he said.

NO BRAINER
For Exploding Galaxies publisher Mara Coson, it was a no-brainer to reintroduce Mr. Castillo and his work to today’s generation of Filipino readers.

“Erwin Castillo has long joined the list of enigmatic Filipino writers whose work has been praised for generations and until kingdom come and yet has remained so hard-to-find,” she said about the release.

Through this edition, they hope to take him out of that frustrating category. “This is a book that demands to be read and enjoyed again, because it is unquestionably one of our greatest works of Filipino literature,” Ms. Coson said.

Mr. Castillo, born in Manila in 1944, grew up in Mendez-Nuñez, Cavite, and Project 4, Quezon City. He studied at the University of the Philippines, where he was later writer-in-residence. Among the many awards he has won are the Tagayan and Palanca prizes.

Despite all that, in his own words, he comes from “a provincial storytelling tradition, from a distant, perhaps imagined mountain.”

“Nobody ‘should’ read the book. But if ever you begin, I hope you will find it knowledgeable, intelligent and good-hearted, loving and brave,” he said of the new edition.

For Ms. Coson, his approval of resurrecting the novel reflected “generosity not just towards the readers of this edition, but towards trusting us that this all has to be done, that this book has to be reopened.”

In his speech, Mr. Castillo acknowledged the tumultuous nature of Philippine history, which has circled back to the same problems time and again from the 1900s up to now. He cited the winds of the amihan and habagat, which take turns to shape the lives of Filipinos.

His final statement for people who’d want to read the book encapsulates his hopes for it: “The book aspires to suggest another way, a guide to survival that is tentative and hesitant but may, if only at this precious, this single instant, assure you we have done as well as we are able.”

The Firewalkers is available in Fully Booked, National Bookstore, and select bookstores including Everything’s Fine in Makati and Mt. Cloud Bookshop in Baguio, as well as in online marketplaces Shopee and Lazada. — Brontë H. Lacsamana