Book Review: Pillars of Creation by Carlos Nicolás Flores

Reviewed by Eric Mayrhofer

Contradictions, uncertainties, guilt, and memory abound on the Texas-Mexico border in this meditative novel.

Pillars of Creation: A Quest for the Great Name in a Nietzschean World sounds like it should be the title to a ponderous doorstop of a book filled with momentous emotions and epic undertakings. In a sense, it is. Here, the epic doesn’t unfold on a battlefield, but inward, as Carlos Nicolás Flores’s characters grapple with the Mexican and Chicano culture they feel slipping away as they live on the America side of the U.S.-Mexico border. On the other hand, the book feels everyday, with its emotions untangling in between casual conversations about Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or the ebbs and flows of sativa-dominant Tezca high.

Readers will find that these contradictions define Pillars of Creation, making it at once an immersive slice of life and a compelling meditation on uncertainty against the backdrop of today’s quixotic immigration system.

Written in the second-person point of view, the novel centers around Yoltic, a young man with aspirations of becoming the next great Hispanic writer, on par with Bolano. After all, “The New York Times recognized him as one of the great writers of all time, along with Jorge Luís Borges and Gabriel García Márquez. And he never even graduated from high school. ‘If he could do that,’ you argued, ‘why can’t I?'” He experiences intense bouts of productivity, a flow state in which he produces entire novels, only to discover that his works come to nothing. And even though he doesn’t see his lack of formal education as a roadblock to artistic greatness, it is a source of guilt. Flores writes that “not only did you lose your government grants and loans [from university]…you dishonored [your father] by squandering what little money he had saved with so much sacrifice.”

While Yoctil’s professional prospects seem dead on the vine, his lover Marfil seems to be a beacon of stability. Even though their romance doesn’t immediately spark, she sticks in his mind. Once they unite and their relationship blooms, Pillars of Creation follows them as they navigate, at once together and silently, what they lose by having to flee across the border to evade violence and achieve their dreams.

The second-person viewpoint, problematic in other books because of its tendency to confuse readers, works here on a thematic level. As people of the border, Yoctil, Marfil, and their friends and family both remember and mourn their identity. A duality is inherent to both their geography and their identity, and Flores’s syntactical choice here insists on making the reader—forced into the characters’ shoes—to ask, “Who am I?”

The book’s focus on casual conversation and tender moments, punctuated by memories of violence, guilt, or self-loathing, also helps its contradictory tone achieve surprising suspense. At one point, when driving to pick up medication for Yoctil’s father, Yoctil and Marfil find themselves in a restaurant that becomes commandeered by an unseen crime lord’s enforcers. Instead of spraying bullets in a violent warning, the enforcers are all smiles. They say, “Our jefe has traveled a long way. And he would like to invite all of you to be his guest. Eat, drink, all you want…Norte americanos, Americans, welcome to Mexico. We want you to return to your country with good memories of our food and hospitality. So, please enjoy!” It’s an ominous threat in a veneer of generosity, and it works so well because it’s written with the same deliberate tone as the smaller, more intimate scenes around it. This deliberate tone and pace is rewarding but admittedly slow-paced.

But what Pillars of Creation spends its time on is compelling, and the liminal state of being it represents on the U.S.-Mexico border is a textured contemplation in a time when some voices would rather flatten and dehumanize immigrant cultures and experiences.

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