Paco Bescos. Interview

Paco Bescos He is a writer, screenwriter and specialist in storytelling and content generation. On May 18, he released a new black genre novel, La ronda. Thank you very much for your time and kindness for this interview where he tells us about her and much more.

Paco Bescós — Interview

• ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: Your new novel is titled La ronda. What do you tell us about it and where did the idea come from?

PACO BESCÓS: My goal with La ronda It has been celebrating a festival, proposing a game, pure pyrotechnics... That is, write the most addictive crime novel you could create. After my last book, hands closed (Sílex, 2020), in which I tell my experience as the father of a girl with cerebral palsy, and that meant stripping me to tears, I didn't just want to return to crime novels. I also needed to have fun with the writing and for the demanding reader to have fun with me.

It was not very easy to find an idea that was up to it; writers do stimulating things to invoke the muses, they travel, they explore, they go to parties, they contemplate works of art… I have spent the last seven years babysitting, taking them from one side of Madrid to the other. One day he was driving towards a school on one of the roads that circled the city. I looked at the asphalt, the other cars, the walkways that cross the road, etc. And I said to myself: «Well, these are the ingredients that we have; Let's do something big with them." 

and what i did was La rondaand an thriller closely linked to the city of Madrid, where I try to combine a thousand ingredients from the classic noir genre to get an innovative recipe. It is a novel with a very careful plot, almost a sudoku, which I think will surprise to the most demanding readers. 

• AL: Can you go back to that first book you read? And the first story you wrote?

PB: I don't know if it's the first book I've read, but it is the first novel I'm aware of having read: day ghosts, Lucia Baquedano, published by the orange series of Steamboat, who has done so much to start reading my entire generation. I remember it because I ate it sitting in the long corridor of my parents' house, and it functioned as a sounding board for my laughter. that book is wonderful.

As for the first story I wrote, I like to say that my first stories were not told by writing words on paper. I told them to myself thanks to my toys. He loved collections like Masters of the Universe and GI Joe. He had a lot of dolls and he had amazing adventures with them, I want to believe even complex ones, with unexpected twists and characters that changed sides. could have given rise to good scripts. 

writers and readings

• AL: A head writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras. 

PB: The writer who has taught me the most has been the recently deceased Kenzaburo Oe. We share having raised a son with a disability, and he will always mark my steps, with his courage and his humanism going against the current. Now, I have only dedicated one book to my daughter while he has dedicated all of her work to his. That effort seems exhausting, impossible.

I am an evasion novel author. Evasion novel for intelligent readers, I like to say. As such, Jim Thompson, Leonardo Sciascia, Patricia Highsmith, Dennis Lehane or (more recently and in another genre entirely) Mariana Enriquez They are authors whose narratives are captivating to me.   

• AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create? 

PB: Personally knowing the truth is that perhaps to nobody. Good black novel characters are not recommendable people. I like that they are violent, toxic and rootless. They look good on paper, but in real life I would run away from them. However, there are many characters that I would have given an arm to create. Nick coreyby Jim Thompson; Sanchez, by Esther García Llovet; Irene Ricart (the myopic detective) by Rosa Ribas; Joe Coughlinby Dennis Lehane Coffin and Grave Diggerby Chester Himmes; Emilio Sanzby Teresa Valero; the gentlemanby Carlos Augusto Casas; Fair-Poorby Carlos Bassas; each one of the detectives portrayed by Leticia Sánchez Ruiz; the poor devils of the neighborhood Paco Gomez Notary… There are so many.

• AL: Any special habits or habits when it comes to writing or reading? 

PB: Every time they ask me this question I get a laugh. And I remember those statements by Zadie Smith, in which she would say something like that that she would write when she finished the housework. Without intending to come to appropriate the disadvantages that women have suffered for centuries, when it comes to developing any professional career, the truth is that I cannot afford the luxury of having hobbies or customs.

I have three small children, one of them with a severe disability, and I am a self-employed person who goes out hunting for something to eat every day. My hobby or custom is take advantage of that only minute that is free in the day to put a line more on the manuscript instead of watching a Netflix series. 

• AL: And your preferred place and time to do it? 

PS: The one where I find myself when the chance comes. 

• AL: Are there other genres that you like? 

PB: I like them all the genders. I like good literatureNot a specific genre. The noir genre is the one in which I have shown myself to perform better as an author. But my readings are varied. Before, he mentioned Mariana Enríquez. Her way of recovering the classic fantastic horror genre and giving it a social, modern, almost postmodern paint job is something she celebrates with great joy. 

The now and the editorial landscape

• AL: What are you reading now? And writing?

PB: I am reading in audiobook (In my situation, the audiobook has revealed itself to me as a very pleasant solution to be able to read an adequate number of hours, because it is compatible with driving, collecting pots and pans or giving my daughter dinner) the monumental biographical work which Antonio Scurati land has dedicated to Mussolini. And in paper, the dead, Jorge Ibarguengoitia.  

• AL: How do you think the publishing scene is?

PB: I think it's tainted by over-publishing. There are more books than readers. This causes many authors to feel frustrated at not achieving the relevance they believe their work deserves. To this must be added a great prescription problem, both by publishers and "professional" critics.

If one wants to stand out, without being a celebrity from TV, you must try very hard. If, in addition to standing out, you want to make some financial gain without selling your soul to the devil, you already have to juggle (let's not talk about "living for it", which is like riding a unicorn). Make a good strategy, know which way you want to go, look for the opportunity and work like a ripped. And assume that success is for very few, who will also soon be forgotten. There is a recent interview with the great Carlos Zanón that is discouraging in that sense. 

• AL: How are you handling the current moment we live in?

PB: Anyone who can stop for a few minutes to answer a questionnaire like this with pleasure is not here to complain. I carry it wellOr so I try to make myself believe.