We’re told Spain needs babies. Statistics have the birthrate slumping down near sub-replacement levels; demographers report that if not for the reproductive efforts of immigrant populations, a Spain of Golden Girls would already be upon us — a country for old men, and of them. But if all of this is true, you wouldn’t know it in Puente Genil. Around here, stores with names like Dulce Bebé (Sweet Baby), Los Peques (The Small Ones), and Little Kings (Little Kings) do brisk business catering to the vagaries of moda infantil (infant fashion). Family-portrait studios appear to be surviving the economic downturn reasonably well, and clothing outlets can be counted on to carry maternity wear. Puente Genil may have been spared American fast-food chains for now, but Dulce Bebe has three stores in Puente Genil, in as many blocks. Even as a venerable local real-estate firm recently closed up shop, a new baby-shoe store — not a shoe store with baby shoes, not a baby clothes store with baby shoes, but a baby-shoe store, cobbler to the recently fetal — opened up in its place. If Spain really is aging, it would seem to be doing so somewhere else.

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The first time a Spaniard told me to go see the Chinese, I thought maybe I’d been dissed. Ve a los Chinos: Spanish for Go play in traffic. Then again, why was Araceli, my new landlady, insulting me? All I’d done was ask where I might buy a roll of cellophane tape. I hadn’t meant to insinuate that rolls of cellophane tape should come with the flat. With Obama in the White House, I didn’t think the tiny American flag I’d staked in the window box — my very first American flag, a modest starter flag — could be held against me a priori. And anyway, what gripe did the Spanish have with the Chinese? Had I missed some grim episode in Sino-Hispano history? When Araceli picked up on my confusion, she didn’t do much to clear it up: she simply told me exactly where I might find these Chinese people. Four blocks up Calle Aguilar, on the right. Across from Manolo Dapena’s fruit stand.

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This month we expand upon an earlier Noted Abroad installment, providing the full text of a piece that was initially stripped down in the interest of achieving a blog-friendly style. Subsequent events, notably a USA Today interview with romance author Nicholas Sparks, have made a reprise of the material seem appropriate.

The bookstore in Puente Genil has a wide selection of reference books, novels and biographies in Spanish, but, perhaps because no sensible English-speaking traveler would make Puente Genil part of their Andalusian adventure, English titles are few and far between. Even the proprietor isn’t always sure which books-in-English he carries, or where in his store they might be found. If you happen to find one, it is likely to be an American or British novel that has been made into a Hollywood blockbuster, which blockbuster has inspired publishers to repackage the book — NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE! — and send shit-tons of copies, in various languages, out into the world far and wide, so far and so wide that some of them, somehow, land in places like Puente Genil. In short, a thorough combing of the bookshop revealed that if my student Macu wanted to study a novel in English, she would need to choose between Atonement, No Country for Old Men, and The Notebook.

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A few summers ago at a beachside bar in Bahia I met an older German named Ernst. A retired anesthesiologist on annual leave from his marriage, Ernst said he had chosen Brazil for just this sort of thing: cold beer at the beach. Because Ernst referenced the extramarital nature of his trip several times over, it was possible to suspect other motives, but no need to go into them. Instead I asked Ernst if he would recommend Germany as a place to visit. I had never much wanted to go to Germany and didn’t much now, but it was something to talk about. Ernst said Germany was a wonderful place to visit — but for the turkeys.

“Turkeys?” I said.

“They are everywhere. They come into the country and commit the crimes. They are a big problem.” Ernst tightened his lips, shook his head. He was really concerned about this.

I was, too. I felt sure the turkey was native to the States; I knew for certain it had made the short list for national bird. But of course you can raise turkeys just about anywhere, and prepositions are a notorious sticking point for ESL speakers: maybe Ernst meant turkeys were coming in from the country. Breaking free of their farms, descending upon the cities. But still… what kind of problem did turkeys pose for law enforcement? What crime could a turkey commit?

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DSM contributor Charlie Geer wrote OUTBOUND a couple of years back and for a moment all seemed right with the world: the novel earned positive reviews, Geer was a man-about-town, and, most important, his reputation as an exciting new author was confirmed.

Described as “wickedly funny” by the Charleston Post and Courier, OUTBOUND won the 2006 Independent Publishers Award for Best Regional Fiction, Southeast.

Then the publishing house folded and suddenly the future of his book, after much momentum-building and praise-garnering, was uncertain.

It’s an unfortunate scenario that, unfortunately, happens all too often.

Rather than throwing up his hands, though, Geer thought about that old lemon analogy and took his manuscript to a POD publisher, had a fresh new cover designed, formatted the text for Kindle and whammo, OUTBOUND was brought back to life.

OUTBOUND is now available (in digital or paperback).

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