During the First World War, Barcelona was a victim of spionitis: if you kicked a tree, a dozen secret agents would fall. And at the same time, while Europe suffered, here Paral·lel shone and the labor movement was organized. This is the framework in which the new novel by Andreu Martín (Barcelona, 1949), The fourth girl from the left (Alrevés, in Catalan in Crims. cat) takes place.
In the novel, a village boy arrives in Barcelona looking for a woman, of whom he only has a photo, and who turns out to be a star of the Moulin Rouge -the current Molino-, Amanda, coupled with a theoretically ruined shipowner, Xavier Rutllana . They are the protagonists who move the plot, with a historical background that takes you back to that mythical Paral·lel.
For Martín, the book comes from a "Barcelona where everything happened, simultaneously", because "the first idea was espionitis and the desire to reflect Paral·lel, but it turns out that in that 1917 the labor movement had one of the resurgences more violent, not only here, but also in Paris and other places.” In addition, he discovers that this labor movement is often infiltrated by the German secret service, a fact known to experts and unknown to many. In the plot, the writer even imagines a clandestine German submarine base, without knowing then that in the Costa Brava, among other places, there actually were, despite the theoretical Spanish neutrality. Nothing is what it seems.
In any case, for him “it is a book about the truth and the lack of truth. Spies are gentlemen who dress up as lies, disguise themselves, pretend to be who they are not to get truths that they will later sell, and they will be truths or lies. 'What I tell you will be words, I will say yes and the other will say no', says a character in the book, and shows the relativity of truths. “I suppose that I am also inspired by the issue of fake news, which is not so far from our reality”, he specifies.
Martín did not intend to return to explore a time that he had already dealt with in Cabaret Pompeya (2011) and in a certain way in Barcelona Tragica (2009), but it was also a way of approaching a city that no longer exists: “The Mill that remains today is Unfortunately, the Paral·lel I am talking about has disappeared”. “It is a way of immortalizing a Barcelona that was fantastic,” he continues. I have always loved Barcelona very much, I have adored it and I have learned everything that was good about it, but at the moment with things like the superilles or the bike lanes they are destroying everything that seemed to me that made it the perfect city, so well offspring In the name of a good cause, for global warming, okay, and I accept all explanations, but I don't like it. I don't like that something that was perfect for me is being destroyed. Is there no other choice? Okay, but I don't like it." “I leave and that's it, but it's not just about physical Barcelona, but also about morality. There comes a time when transgression is highly valued, increasingly penalized. There are more and more sins and I have been raised in a philosophy in which transgressing was good and positive. Isn't it time to transgress now? Well, I'm sorry, I'm old enough... In any case, I'll apologize, but let me do it”.
Martín, who participated in BCNegra yesterday and has curated the Crim i delicte exhibition that can be seen at the Museu d'Història de Catalunya (until February 26), is a faithful writer to the genre: "I have dedicated my whole life to it and I have written many black novels, but always trying to do it from different points of view. Literature is a game, for me, and crime fiction is the funniest game. It is a genre that even has a social function: “It is an exotic world, where strange things happen, hectic, very dangerous adventures, with very bizarre people, but who coexist with the world where we are. We live mixed. In this same restaurant, at the next table, there may be two people planning a murder. Because right now, in Barcelona, there are two people planning a murder." “So knowing this world is a way of having it under control, and having it under control means that perhaps we are in less danger of it attacking us. And it also helps us to analyze the society in which we live”.
The writer also does not forget his side in children's and youth literature –his previous book is A girl disguised as a clarinet (Birabiro), published last November–, maintaining the black tone: “Soledad Puértolas said very well that when you write for adults you are writing for yourself, and when you write for young people, you're writing for an identifiable audience. It does not mean that there are topics that you do not want to touch, but that you will take their reactions into account. I feel very comfortable with both, but I would even say that working for young people makes me feel freer, curiously”.
Catalan version, here
