AUTHOR: Mª Ángeles López Romero
PUBLISHER: Edelvives
GENRE: Fiction
READER’S NAME: Kenneth Barger
DATE: August 20th, 2023

Serás Recuerdo, Serás Olvido is Spanish author and journalist Mª Ángeles López Romero’s first novel. Dina, the protagonist and narrator, is in her late 30s, and, like the author of this novel, works as a freelance journalist and is a budding novelist. She has a tight-knit social circle that includes her two sisters, her partner, her three best friends, and lots of other family and friends.

In the first pages, Dina receives disturbing news: an experimental test strongly predicts that she will have Alzheimer’s later in life. This shock colors her thoughts, feelings, and experiences over the next year and a half or so that the novel narrates. And it is soon followed by more trauma and loss: one close friend has a stroke and goes into a coma, and another dies in murky circumstances.

There are elements of a murder mystery to this novel. When Chiqui dies at a brothel with drugs in his system and a bag over his head, Dina feels compelled to get to the bottom of it. She employs her journalistic skills and instincts to seek the truth about his death, endangering herself in the process.

But this mystery is not the central theme of the novel. Throughout the story, Dina grapples with loss: of loved ones, of health, of memories. She obsesses over her Alzheimer’s test results and panics when she finds she can’t remember things. She gives instructions to her friends about what they are to do when she is no longer herself. (They are not on board with leaving her to freeze to death in the snow somewhere.) She frets about getting older and is disconcerted by her older friends’ increasing health problems. And she grieves for her dead friend and for her friend who may or may not ever wake up from his coma.

Despite these dark themes, this is an often fun, even joyful, read. Interestingly, her relationships with her loved ones are entirely healthy and fulfilling. Her three best friends and she, nicknamed “The Four Seasons,” have been close since childhood, and they can talk about anything. Edu is very much in love with her and does everything he can to be a good partner to her. Her mother hosts Dina and her friends and family at her house every week for a pleasant dinner gathering. And Dina herself is eminently likeable: sincere, kind, introspective, insightful, and fun.

The story progresses in rather loose fashion, and the reader may at times wonder where it’s heading. This is not a novel with a clear beginning, middle, and end. But it really works, because, after all, life doesn’t have a clearly defined plotline either. And the lines between author and protagonist are blurred: López Romero writes about Dina, who writes about Olvido, and all three seem to be versions of the same person. In these senses, Serás Recuerdo, Serás Olvido has elements of the surrealist novels, without crossing entirely into surrealism.

This is a fun and engaging read. The reader comes very quickly to care about Dina and her circle. The mystery keeps one’s curiosity piqued. The dialogue is compelling, colloquial, and believable. And the themes of loss are universal and utterly relatable. Serás Recuerdo, Serás Olvido is a terrific novel, and it will be great to see what López Romero writes in the future.