2023-05-01 13:15:34
Dulce hogar is his fifth black novel. Do you think that at this point you can consider yourself a fan of thrillers?
Completely. Crime novels have always been a genre with which I have identified for many reasons: I have been very fearful but at the same time I have liked to scare and consume horror stories. I’ve also been a big fan of mystery series, like Twin Peaks. And it is a great satisfaction to know that this obsession, this game, has now become my job.
And what is it that attracts you to the genre?
I think it is the desire and intrigue. I was obsessed with everything that scared me. And although at first it seemed incomprehensible to me, once I was investigating I realized that human beings, once they are at their limit, are capable of doing terrible things. It is that mixture between terror and the need to know, which I believe is the essence that Dulce hogar emanates. Julia, the protagonist, has a voyeuristic attraction to a boy who watches her and a series of additional themes. She knows that she has entered a dangerous spiral, but it is the same morbidity that holds her captive.
Precisely the style of the book seems to generate anguish, especially at the beginning.
I highly value the mystery of not knowing where the shots are going to go. I found it fascinating to start in an apparently happy and beautiful way that turned into something terrifying and uncertain; that puzzled the reader. In the end, the best way to send an important message or a moral is to ensure that readers are hooked on the story; and I think that with my works, at least from the reviews I’m reading, I get that feeling of restlessness and reflection.
He always tends to take personal experiences to write his works. How much of you is in this installment?
Well, a lot and a little at the same time, luckily. I think that for this type of work you need to inject some fear or personal experience. Then I transform that experience with a more attractive and appetizing wrapper. The anecdote that prompted this work happened to me when one day I went outside to read and I felt as if a figure was watching me from a nearby hill. I couldn’t tell if it was a person or just an animal, but that feeling of fear and uncertainty, of not knowing what intentions that figure might have, was the basis for the novel.
Julia also embodies a social critic. Especially towards that obsession with success.
Rubén and Julia, who are the leading couple, I think they represent all the people I know. Julia is a woman with a great professional career, who has traveled all over the world, has had many experiences and who enjoys great financial stability. But she misses a piece, and that is that she can’t get pregnant after many attempts. That frustration and the little tact of her people makes her forget all the good things in her life. She makes him feel guilty about himself.
It is a dilemma that makes you question the way you have lived your life.
Nowadays everything is very complicated: finding a good job, a good flat, stability, etc. But even so, we have to continue with more efficiency and better results; without falling behind the rest. We have to have a wonderful job, a huge house, a spectacular physique, we must get married and have children in our thirties… In short, our life has to be perfect. Every time we arrive later to everything because of the impositions, and what you have to realize is that each person has to follow their own path and live life their way. Social networks do not help in this at all. They are a place where only success is shared. However, no one talks about the path to that success, only the end result.
Another topic that also touches is natural exploitation and climate change.
This is closely related to the time context in which I wrote the novel, which was in the summer. Due to the high temperatures, in Spain there were a large number of fires. Although some cases were due to arsonists, many of those situations were caused by urban conditions. I wanted to relate that aspect to the work by placing Julia in a development that suffered a recent fire. She discovers it, she suspects that it was not a simple wild fire, but that there was something more. And then she is creating a flame related to the fire itself but also to that curiosity that Julia keeps in front of the boy who is watching her. The fire represents both global warming and the inner burning of the protagonist.
With which facet would you say you are most in tune with right now? Actor or writer?
Right now I spend more time as a writer. I write because I have the need to tell stories. It’s somewhat therapeutic. Also, thanks to my books, a precious communion is being created between my readers and my world. Being an actor is different, in the end you depend on many external factors. That does not mean that I will leave that profession aside. I have several shoots and projects that I am combining, but I also want to take advantage of this moment as an author. In the end, it’s about maximizing organization.
#feeling #creating #telling #stories #therapeutic