Photographs (c) Mariola DCA.
Last Monday I was in the presentation of The last ship, the new novel by the writer Sunday Villar, from Vigo based in Madrid. It was held at the Galicia House in the heart of the capital and there were absolute full.
Simple, humble and overdone Due to the great reception after 10 long years waiting for this book, Villar gave us a relaxed talk and all your kindness. So there goes this article about him act and on one of the best crime novel trilogies that I have read.
Galicia, Domingo, Leo, Rafa and me
I'm going on vacation to bueu, on the south bank of the Pontevedra estuary, every June for more than 20 years. Y cross Vigo from Cangas seeing the bridge of Date aside and the islands Cies the other is for me one of the greatest pleasures of the whole year.
Actually, those days in Galicia are always the best of the year. Because of the climate, the food, the people and the music in its accent and the landscape so completely different from my dry and flat lands of origin. So in time Although I was born Manchego cheese, I also feel like an octopus to feira.
That's why one day that part of my heart jumped when, in a bookstore and looking without looking for anything in particular, I saw a couple of books with black and white covers and attractive titles. I picked one up and on the back cover I read names like Vigo or Panxón. In Water eyes the victim was from Bueu, and in The beach of the drowned the event occurred in Panxón, so I did not hesitate to take them.
Then I met the characters: Inspector Leo Caldas, reserved, serious, of few words, calm, with a somewhat stuck personal life and marked by the relationship with his father and the early death of his mother. Has a helper, Rafael Estévez, from Zaragoza, 193 centimeters of strong and direct hand, of difficult prompt that have gotten him into more than one trouble and have earned him a kind of exile to Galicia with an added: that of having to also deal with the proverbial Galician ambiguity that usually unhinges him.
They barely lasted me I fell madly in love with Leo Caldas and I will adore that brown beast of Rafael Estévez forever, a perfect counterpoint in this pair of policemen as ours as unique. Now I have eaten the third one too and, by the way, they have been increasing in size as well as in readers.
Presentation of The last ship in Madrid - March 25 - Casa de Galicia
In the presentation of this third novel, Domingo Villar was chatting with the journalist Susana Santaolalla for almost an hour. Very excited and shy At first, Villar showed the double feeling of disbelief and uncertainty so much for the welcome of the book after so long as because that same time would have destined it to I forget. Nothing is further from reality. It was a immediate success in criticism at all levels and in sales.
Villar told us about why has it taken ten years to release this third book, which was originally titled Stone crosses. A personal bump in the road, the death of his father, made him rethink what he had written. So decided to start over. Because as we who write know well, when the muses take vacations, block themselves or ignore you, you have to give time. And each story has its own.
Creation process
He also talked about the process of creation, what difficult and frustrating That can turn out sometimes. And we also know about this. It takes 10 years to sketch and shape events, environments and characters, you put on the table an emotion that you also want to convey the reader. And you want to make that story stay impregnated and take, or consider forever, its protagonists as friends.
And so Readers barely take a few days to gulp it down. Me it barely took me two weeks, and because I have been spacing the moments of a reading that, therefore desired, for good and for excellently structured, you have to continue yes or yes as soon as you start it.
It happened to the previous two, so how could it not be the same now? And forget? Forget that Rainy Vigo, that gray estuary of clouds and choppy sea, those contrasts between urban and rural? Forget kindness, simplicity, compassion and loneliness of the melancholic Leo Caldas? The lucidity and affection of his father? To the unbearable santiago losada? To the effective Clara Barcia? To the commissioner Copse? Forget that wild animal by Rafa Estévez, whom all the dogs in the world hate and whom it is impossible not to adore?
No, all those characters so well woven and displayed are unforgettable. As the stories and characters secondary, And the plots so well conceived and woven into Scenarios just as protagonists.
Photography: (c) Ediciones Siruela on Twitter.
Themes, characters, writer's hobbies
Villar acknowledged that I was overwhelmed. But it is what happens when things are done well no matter how long they take to create. Of course, what we asked him was that don't wait another 10 years for the next novel. I certainly already want more.
He continued commenting on the new plot, characters and themes of this third novel: the many and different parent-child relationships, loneliness in a crowded city which, however, can be shown empty by the indifference towards others such as the homeless and homeless. Or, in the most rural environment, rejection and fear towards those who are supposedly different.
He also spoke of those hobbies personal information of each author, such as his read aloud what you write more or less close listeners who give their opinion or guide or simply listen. And in response to a question from the journalist, she commented that she can write in both Galician and Spanish, especially the dialogues. And how then he goes on polishing and fitting the translations into the final text.
And of course he talked about that humor which is also in his novels. That Galician retranca that "they throw on us at birth" and what is so house brand. A humor that shines more for that masterful counterpoint among all Galician characters and the one who is not: Rafael Estevez.
The end point
Was the sincere and excited thanks to family, friends, editors and readers for this time of waiting and patience with this lonely and inner job that is writing. A thank you that was mutual by the editors and, of course, by all attendees.
In the well-known company After finishing the act, Villar attended us with wasted kindness, and his "Thank you" to my praise, admiration and thanks for their stories were the finishing touch to another of those literary moments that you already treasure for the remains.
Trilogy
Water eyes
Whoever knows Vigo beyond its inhabitants will have seen that monstrous residential tower isolated next to a beach. There a saxophonist, with striking clear eyes and called louis reigosa, appears murdered with a fury that points to a crime of passion. But not there's nothing at the crime scene, no footprints, no signs of a fight, nor any personal relationship to suspect.
The beach of the drowned
The last ship
The disappearance of a young girl, Monica Andrade, daughter of a renowned surgeon and who lives in Tiran, next to Moaña, is involved in mystery From the beginning. I worked in the Vigo School of Arts and Crafts, he had no apparent reason to leave or enemies that posed a threat. Or maybe yes.
La thorough investigation de Caldas y Estévez is taking steps that seem to be lost in a thousand probabilities and labels for all as suspects. In addition, personal lives of the two policemen they are going to have many changes that many readers surely have already thanked.
Summarizing
If you haven't read it yet, you have to start now. For his literary quality and its agile reading syntax as elaborate as it is clear. Also for those short chapters and always introduced by a brand of the house: the different meanings of a word what's in them.
But above all because of the capacity de get into an environment so close but misty and with a magic touch that I always associate with Galician terra. And about characters yes, they become friends with you from the first time you meet them, of those that you always think that I wish they were real for its authenticity.