Paco Gómez Escribano: «Crime novel writers live from social conflicts»

Photography: Facebook of Paco Gómez Escribano.

Paco Gomez Notary, Madrid writer of Novelty, has a new story, 5 jacks. It is already the eighth after titles like Junkie, when the dead scream o Banned to post posters. I really appreciate your time and dedication to this interview where he tells us a little about literature, influences, projects and current affairs.

INTERVIEW - PACO GÓMEZ ESCRIBANO

  • ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: Do you remember the first book you read? And the first story you wrote?

PACO GÓMEZ ESCRIBANO: No, it is impossible to remember the first thing I read. However, yes that I remember the first serious thing I wrote, when I was in secondary (which was then EGB, that's how old we are). At least it seemed serious to me. Was a little tale what did i title Castle. Obviously, this had neither head nor tail. I simply imagined a castle on top of a mountain and began to write. I said, kid nonsense.

  • AL: What was that book that impacted you and why?

PGE: We continue with the school. Among the many rocks that we had to read, books that were not suitable for our ages, I really liked one that some teacher had the lucidity to demand that we read. It was Requiem for a Spanish farmer, Ramón J. Sender. I suppose the brevity and conciseness of the story (something I was grateful for then and am still grateful for now) helped, but the story I was fascinated by the injustice committed to the character and the reflections of all the other secondary ones.

  • AL: And that favorite writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.

PGE: I'm going to tell you one about crime novels and another about dirty realism, which are the two genres that I am passionate about. They are, respectively, Chester Himes and Hubert Selby Jr.

I find the saga of Coffin Johnson and Gravedigger Jones. They are fantastic, but the collection of moronic or crazed characters displayed throughout the nine novels is unheard of, not to mention the social criticism acidic, sharp and accurate of a Himes who was too angry with the system, and reasons were not lacking.

Selby is sublime in all his work, but especially in Last departure for Brooklyn and in Requiem for a Dream got me FEELING. Yes, feel with capital letters. And that, few writers succeed. One last.

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

PGE: I would have liked to meet and create John Archibald Dortmunder, The character of Donald westlake. It just seems to me wonderful, in addition to one of the exponents of the black novel of humor that I like so much. Yes, not only would I have liked to meet him, but to have planned a robbery with him over a few beers in that famous booth at the bar.

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

PGE: For read I have no hobbies, except that I have learned that when I don't like a novel I close it and I choose another. I guess it's because I've gotten older and can take less than before. As to write, I like it sit down when I already have the novel in the head and when i know i'm going to have time every day to write.

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

PGE: Well, the truth is, I have written in many places: in rooms of hotels, riding a bars and sometimes even on the laptop anywhere if I have had a hole. But I have to admit that where I write the most is in my room, amid the reigning controlled chaos.

  • AL: What do we find in your latest novel, 5 jacks?

PGE: The narration of the preparations for a robbery, its execution and its consequences. It is a novel by very marked characters, in line with what I've been doing lately, antiheroes his losers, but of those who they don't give up never.

Tthere is also soundtrack, as in all my novels, this time music by blues, because it hit, since this may be, in terms of style, my most american novel. I am happy with the result.

  • AL: More literary genres?

PGE: Throughout my life I have read everything, but myself the black novel hooks me. He deliberately left her to read other things, but he always came back to her. And there came a time when, done to the rhythm and intensity of the genre, the rest ended up boring me.

So, now I don't read anything else, except works of my other great literary passion in terms of genres: dirty realism. Although I think it is the same. In the same way that the spy novel is related to the detective novel, dirty realism is closely related to the crime novel, since always.

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

PGE: Right now I'm reading The night was filled with sirens, of the teacher Julian Ibáñez, who is still in shape and age has given him that point that all teachers have in any discipline. It is delicious every time he puts out a novel.

As for writing, I have some 100 pages of a new novel which I have been thinking about for a long time and which is about the social news that we live and the FIES regime in prisons that launched the government of Felipe González.

  • AL: How do you think the publishing scene is for as many authors as there are or want to publish?

PGE: Well, I think there are options for everyone tastes, from large publishers to self-publishing to a variety of independent publishers. As you say, now there are many people who want to write, and that is good, as long as there are many people who want to read, which is not the case. Supply and demand is something that in this somewhat schizophrenic sector does not work. There are jewels that go unnoticed and mediocrities elevated to Olympus. Time will tell.

  • AL: What is the moment of crisis that we are experiencing assuming you? Can you keep something positive or useful for future novels?

PGE: The moment we live in is fucked up for everyone, but obviously some have a worse time than others, as always. Professionally I play it every day by going to the institute to give Vocational Training classes, not to children of those who do not infect, but to people who are already adults. I play it as toilets, cleaners and so many other anonymous heroes play it. Life goes on.

As for itself it will serve me for future novels I think so. Black novel writers live from social conflicts, of the things that should not exist, but that do exist. If the world were Disneyland we wouldn't have to work and I obviously wouldn't write. I would dedicate myself to being out there, traveling and having a good time.


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  1.   Gustavo Woltmann said

    A very interesting interview from a very experienced author who knows his genre a lot. It is to admire the ideas he conceives and his way of explaining himself. Excellent article.
    -Gustavo Woltmann