AUTHOR: David Trueba
PUBLISHER: Siruela
GENRE: Novel
READER’S NAME: Alejandro Varderi
DATE: June 17, 2020
A coming of age novel set in a small summer town near Madrid. The narrator tells the story in flashbacks, several years later, and recuperates his memories of friends vacationing all together during Easter Week with their families. It is a book of easy reading written from a teenage perspective and directed, mainly, to a young audience.
However, the youngsters’ adventures do not engage the reader since they have no much substance beyond of what seems banal and commonplace: Opening the house, riding their bikes, finding and assortment of objects and garbage in the polluted river, having dinner together: “Cenamos pollo con las manos. Como los romanos, decía Gaspar. Yolanda trajo de la cocina un rollo de papel y era cómico ver cómo Lucía trataba de no mancharse de grasa más que la mínima porción de la yema de los dedos,” p. 90 [We dined chicken with our hands. Like the Romans, Gaspar said. Yolanda brought a roll of paper from the kitchen and it was funny to see how Lucía tried not to stain with grease more than the tip of her fingers].
The presence of Ros, and adult who had been in jail, befriends the boys and now is fixing his old house, brings an uncanny presence in the predictability of their days, although there is not much elaboration on the character’s personality. Hence, the excitement of his whereabouts rapidly wears thin, and he becomes another uninteresting figure in the story.
The characters’ concern with the polluted environment, having the river as an allegory of what is wrong with our societies, adds an interesting issue, which could have been expanded and enriched in order to involve the reader in a more significant struggle,
in view of the economic and social differences between the urban vacationists and the locals. Nevertheless, the matter is only sketched and the concerns remain unaddressed: “Intentamos luchar en contra pero no pasó nada. Aquí no todo el mundo viene para disfrutar del paisaje. Hay gente que vive de eso, la cantera da trabajo a muchas familias de la zona,” p. 74 [We tried to fight against it but nothing happened. Here not everyone comes to enjoy the scenery. There are people who live from that, the quarry gives work to many families in the area].
English-speaking teens will not see themselves represented in the Spaniards’ behavior and, consequently, their everyday adventures will not find an echo in the Americans’ interests and concerns.
Other authors, such as Maite Carranza (Calla, Cándida, calla, 2017), Marina Marroquí (Eso no es amor, 2017), and Gemma Lienas (the Diarios series) have been more successful in bridging the gap between the tales and what they represent to the new generation, in terms of their own fears, joys, and expectations.
David Trueba is a well-known Spanish artist. He has published five novels, written movie scripts, directed several film productions, and worked as an actor and journalist. His novel Saber perder (2008) won the National Critics Award, and Tierra de campos (2017) was bestowed the Madrid Critics Award.
