AUTHOR: Maria Barbal
PUBLISHER: Ediciones Destino
GENRE: Novel
READER’S NAME: : Maria Julia Rossi
DATE: : May 25, 2022

Armand and Elena are unhappy each in their own way when they happen to meet during a yoga class. And that’s when the novel begins. Alternate voices, one male and one female, tell a love story that’s a far cry from an idealized teen rom-com. Page after page, readers get a full picture of the story as a puzzle along with the main characters, fifty-somethings whose knowledge of each other is imperfect, as it happens in real life. The male narrator, Armand, is a lonely, retired elevator technician. The female narrator, Elena, is a retired kindergarten teacher. He is a widower; she is unhappily married to a former poet. Each of them has a grown-up son with whom they have different connections. Armand’s son just had a baby and is ready to rebuild a relationship with his estranged father; Elena’s is gay, and he comes out to his parents during the novel.

            This short novel presents a universal topic, aging, as experienced by a woman and a man whose lives had all sorts of trivial joys and domestic tragedies. In the present time of the novel, they look back at their life choices, deal with different regrets, and face different senses of loneliness while embracing new life challenges. Told with a sense of intimacy, the novel has the tone of personal confessions and inner explorations. This topic could be interestingly translated into English, as a universal manner of understanding life experiences: in an urban setting like Barcelona, adult life and second chances are not so different from doing so in some American cities. In this sense, bringing this book to an English-speaking readership will strengthen a real sense of cosmopolitism (against fetishized versions of foreign countries.) Since 1985, Maria Barbal has published more than a dozen novels (and many other books.) Many of them are situated in the Catalan region where she spent her childhood. Barbal is cherished by the Catalan readers, as well as critics, and her literary trajectory has been celebrated since 2001 with numerous awards. This novels of hers, situated in contemporary Barcelona, presents a rather universal topic that will travel well through cultures.

The plot is simple, and the story is told in five sections by two voices—she says (even sections), he says (odd sections.) The novel is about love between an aging man and an equally aging woman, a topic that could be seen as universal and filling a vacuum, since there are not many stories with these kinds of protagonists. The style, too, is congenial and welcoming: there is a tone of calmness in how it is written, an affability that is also slightly poetic. In terms of similar books in the US market, Tandem can be compared to other low-drama stories about second chances, and finding love while aging, such as Frosted (2014) by Katy Regnery, Late Fall (2016) by Noelle Adams, and Second Wind (2019) by Ceillie Simkiss.

I. From Armand’s point of view, we read about his past life (married to Remei, who died years ago, father to Marc from whom he is estranged), and his love affair with the mysterious Elena, whom he has met in a yoga class they take together. Marc communicates with his father after the recent birth of his daughter. Armand, not totally happy about becoming a grandfather (but also not completely annoyed by it), invites Elena to join him in a trip to England to reconnect with his son and meet his daughter in law and newborn granddaughter.

II. From Elena’s point of view, we read a long and somehow tortuous life of sacrifice and abnegation. Although she did not seem to have felt this during previous years, she now realizes she’s been depriving herself from happiness for all the wrong reasons, mostly pride and social judgement. After an awful car accident, she had discovered Ramir, her husband, was having an affair when their son was a young kid. She then embraced her career and raising her son, refusing the love of a colleague she had feelings for. By the time action takes place, she is going through many of her material things, like old books, clothes, and music, and getting rid of a lot of things in her home, a metaphor for her life revisions of her life choices.

III. From Armand’s point of view, we read about the trip to England and the return of the couple to Barcelona. During the trip, Elena shares with his son and family that she actually has a husband and presents the entire situation with a nonchalance that Armand finds quite annoying. He wonders what will happen now and is hopeful about not losing Elena. She does not show much of her feelings to him, so the prospects of their life together are uncertain to him.

IV. “Vuelta a la rutina” [Return to routine]. After their trip together, Elena goes back to her husband, and finds their son at home. During a conversation in which she expected to discuss important topics with her husband, such as her unhappiness and desire to divorce, old and new secrets are shared: the love affair her husband had in the past; her own lack of love for him and her resentments; the son’s homosexuality. The conversation is difficult, but the three family members feel better about having shared their views. The husband has a health issue and ends in the hospital; Pilar, an old friend of the couple, shows up and demonstrates more than just friendship towards the husband. By the end of the section, and against the son’s will, the parents are divorced and pursuing new relationships. Elena moves to a new apartment on her own.

V. Decisiones [Decisions]. From Armand’s point of view, we find out that Elena moved to her new apartment, after helping Ramir when he was in the hospital. Ramir’s relationship with her lover (Pilar, a friend of Elena’s) was a long-time affair that Elena knew nothing about. Although Armand invites Elena many times to move to his apartment, she refuses. In the last page of the book, she invites him to spend the night together at her apartment.