In his signature style, National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose narrates the eye-opening, collar-gripping tale of Juan “Sunny Johnny” Bacnang in his new novel, The Feet of Juan Bacnang (Solidaridad, 2011).
As with most of his highly acclaimed works, Jose intricately loops highlights from Philippine history with his Ilokano heritage.
The novel starts with beginning of the end of the life of Bacnang as he looks back at the ups and downs of his haywire fate.
Every chapter of the novel tells of the demented encounters Bacnang faced and the filthy-rich secrets his politician father kept from everyone—except from Bacnang.
But Juan hides a smelly secret he shares with his father: a pair of ugly feet with big toes webbed to the rest, hideously small and broad—an omen, as was said when he was born. The same set of feet which, ironically, are also his ticket to a rollercoaster life of luxury.
Heir to an empire
A young, charming, and intelligent boy, Bacnang is the stereotypical Ilokano—thrifty, hardworking and persevering even amid destitution.
Bacnang skirmishes into Manila where he finds his well-off father, Senator Juan de la Cruz III, after a criminal twist of events that jeopardized his stay in the barrio of Nalipatan. The meeting catapults the young Bacnang into the fast-paced, high-stakes life of the city where he discovers that he is his father’s only male heir—among dozens of children from different women—to the vast empire of the De la Cruzes.
He undergoes a transformation from a simple rural boy to a lawyer and then tycoon, who comes to be known as “Sunny Johnny”.
Though Bacnang may seem the epitome of success, he soon finds that there are things of great importance not even his vast wealth can secure.
The Feet of Juan Bacnang will seize and pull readers and take them to the crossroads and dead-ends of Philippines history.
With decades of literary excellence behind him, it is not surprising that Jose returns into the spotlight with an exposé of a novel on the social turbulence that seems the chief characteristic of Philippine culture and society. Sarah Mae Jenna A. Ramos
