[Book Review] Trash by Andy Mulligan (Spoilers included!)

"My name is Raphael Fernández and I am a dumpsite boy. People say to me, 'I guess you just never know what you'll find, sifting through rubbish! Maybe one day you'll find something nice.'

Then one day I did.

Okay so I've had this book since the beginning of April, and I didn't have any time to open it from its plastic let alone read it until now. I was actually looking around in the bookstore and I had to say this gem caught my eye. Why? 

Well, first of all, it had the big letters spelling "TRASH" on it (which still makes me giggle when I try to tell anyone "Right now I'm reading Trash."). Second, it was in the middle of books such as the House of Night series and the Blue Bloods series (I love House of Night but I haven't read/ have no inclination to read Blue Bloods though), and finding a green book in the middle of black, and painfully obvious YA books isn't going to be so hard. 

So, anyway, I was intrigued by it and started reading it (while waiting for the book signing event to commence).

And let me just say that it is one hell of a book (in a positive sense).

I mean, yes, I moved with Gardo, and Raphael, and Jun-Jun (Rat), and Sister Olivia, and Father Julliard. I cried internally when Rat stole money from Father Julliard's vault in the Missionary School to buy off Gabriel's Bible from Marco the (wretched) policeman. I cried internally when Rat took care of Pia Dante on the Day of the Dead. I winced and screamed internally when Raphael was being beaten by the police in their version of an 'interrogation'. I felt a cold sense of dread when I read about Jose Angelico buying Pia Dante's grave, only to sigh in relief when it was just a fake and Pia Dante was alive, sitting in front of her grave, albeit starving and too weak to walk.

What struck me most were, of course, the names of the people and the places, and the description of each place because they seem familiar. Raphael calls their home in Behala "Smoky Mountain" and, seeing as the book is set in a supposed 'Unnamed' Third World Country, of course one would think of the Smokey Mountain located in Manila, Philippines. Also, such names as Ermita and Buendia  were also used as places. Another proof is that the local currency seem to be in pesos (but there are Mexican pesos too so it's not much of a lead). Another is that the country supposedly has tourist attractions that are primary destinations for foreigners, but again it's not much of a lead.

What got me convinced was the dialogue between Rat and Father Julliard below:

'Sir po,' he (Rat) said. 'Sir po?' ... 'We are looking for something po.' 'Po,' by the way, is the word of respect people use here for the elders.

And bingo! Here's what I found out about Andy Mulligan, the author, at the back of the book:

Andy Mulligan... has taught English and drama in Britain, India, Brazil, and the Philippines. He now divides his time between London and Manila.

It's sad to think, though, that a foreigner noticed our social problems and did more than the people in the country ever did. In Trash, he talked of a country where people get paid living in the slums, people get paid for being poor, people rent out cement boxes for their dead loved ones for five years and if they can't pay these spaces get sledgehammered open. He talked about monetary extortion to both foreigners and locals. He stated corruption and graft. He showed that there is much to be confronted in the system, like ghost projects and making other countries stop endorsing programs to better the living conditions of everyone. Projects that could have made a difference in the society, even if it was small, yet politicians still siphon a bit here, a bit there, until everything is used up. Even the good intentions of everyone are being used to gain what they want - whatever it is. Money? Fame? Revenge? Everything. 

On my way home after I read the book, I looked at the streets and saw the poor, as I have seen them daily. Sleeping on streets, selling something, or walking around in large groups with oversized t-shirts or too-tight clothes. I see teenagers probably not much older than fourteen-year-old Gardo and Raphael, smoking and drinking. I see the elderly sitting down on dirty sidewalks, rattling old cup noodles containers for spare change. I see children younger than Pia Dante, barely clothed and counted by the dozens, either malnourished or bloated with disease. I see them crying, in the alleyways, by the sidewalk, down the road itself lying down on cardboard, with eyes either dead and hopeless or alert for something snatch-able.

And I tell myself, how odd for a not-so-popular book to suddenly enhance my view on society.

Buy "Trash" by Andy Mulligan from The Book Depository!