a direct hit to the heart

Enough of that, heartache, too Malacriaa book about emotional wounds that are passed down from generation to generation and that cannot be silenced, here is why, as one of the quotes that appear in the book, “We speak with our healing, we keep our children for our healing” (Vladimir Nabokov).

And just that, of three generations of women severely damaged by the past, this story is based on the death of abuela Cecilia and its devastating effect on her daughter Perla and on her daughter Ela, “ruin collector” that all the domingos go up and look for houses on the verge of development, buildings in the middle of ruins, destroyed plots and photos to send to their mother, with whom they have a time that they do not live together.

The last one was sent from Cozumel, not knowing that Perla was about to disappear without leaving the ring after a walk with her pears.

That’s when Ele and his mother’s new daughter, Jeni, a North American who has done many comedic scenes with her broken Spanish, set out to escort Valeriana, paralytic loss who loves water?, is he off the beaten path?, is he lost?

Nos encontramos, pues, en una suerte de road movie con mucho de novela de misterio, de relato intimista, pero también de novela psicológica, feminista y de ciencia ficción, pues Perla cree firmemente en la existencia de un planeta invisible, Daemonia, idéntico a la Tierra, pero radicalmente distinto. Sí, más de una vez esa mujer vulnerable y poderosa, enferma y vital a un tiempo, había soñado con encontrar una puerta de acceso a ese lugar utópico, aunque en realidad, como apunta Díaz Castelo, “miraba al espacio para ver hacia dentro”.

Mientras Ele recibe en el móvil enigmáticos mensajes de voz de su madre, las improvisadas detectives siguen pistas que la propia desaparecida parece haberles dejado en lugares clave para que resuelvan el misterio, su misterio, por lo que visitan a amigas y conocidos que a su vez iluminan la historia de la familia.

Novela inquietante y devastadora, muy recomendable por la calidad de la prosa y su alta intensidad poética

Lo mejor, y lo peor, es que acaban desenterrando un pasado que la abuela reinventaba para su nieta, y en el que a veces aparecía un alemán, el padre de Perla, aunque al final las mujeres resultasen ser las únicas protagonistas de la estirpe: “Elena, hija de Perla, hija de Cecilia, hija de Fátima, hija de Máxima. […] Women who give birth without being together.”

And so, amidst legends, suspicions and certainties, we uncover a family secret that explains the true origins of the Pearl and the Ele, and that, as the story seems to carry, trauma and injury are passed down from generation to generation.

Told in the third person, Malacria It is designed to account for the present and the past, with frequent time jumps thanks to Perlin’s journal pages and notes from abuela’s notebookwhich appear with a special typographic treatment that clearly distinguishes them.

Disturbing and devastating, the quality of the prose, its high poetic intensity and its I sensed humor in the underground make this novel a more recommended title.