When the BCNegra festival presented the Pepe Carvalho award to Don Winslow (New York, 1953) in February of a year ago, no one could have imagined that the literary end of one of the kings of crime literature was near. It didn't take the author two months to announce that he was retiring, that the future had other things planned for him. Of course, out of deference to the hundreds of thousands of his readers, he assured that he would end the trilogy that began with City on Fire (Harper Collins), and which he described at the time as a version of the modern Iliad. Now, the second part is coming to bookstores, City of Dreams, a novel that follows Danny Ryan on his escape from Providence, Rhode Island, after a bloody war between gangsters. His goal: to have a peaceful and quiet life with his elderly father and his baby.
Penultimate book of his career. How does it feel?
I can't find the words to describe it. A mixture of sadness, because the end of my time as a writer is near, and happiness, to see that this trilogy, which I launched twenty-eight years ago, is finally finished.
Have you already written the third book then?
Written and sent to publishers, though readers will have to wait. Is rare. Since I was five years old I wanted to write and I succeeded, but now I won't do it anymore. Not like so far.
Is there no way to go back?
Never say Never. But for now my decision is firm.
And what led you to make that decision?
A host of things. I was fully immersed in this trilogy when a series of political changes took place in the United States that made me feel danger was close. Trump came into power and everything went crazy. I started creating videos in which I analyzed what was happening. I dedicate myself to telling stories and that was one more way of telling one, the one that happened around me.
And I understand that that is what he will continue to do.
I want to get more involved in political activism. I feel that the situation we are experiencing in the country is urgent and that right now I help much more in this role than in that of a writer. I could write a eulogy for American democracy, yes, but it wouldn't make much sense. The videos that I post online reach a lot of people and I want to think that they awaken awareness.
Tell me about your new book. Although it talks about the mafia, City on Fire, the beginning of the trilogy, was inspired by the Trojan War. Where in history are we now?
I have written from the beginning to the middle of the Aeneid. My intention since I started with these books was to follow Aeneas throughout his life. An Aeneas whom I call Danny and who runs from gangsters and police.
You run the risk that not all readers will pick up on references to Homer, Virgil, or the classical Greek playwrights.
It was never a problem. In fact, that's partly where the magic lies. As I wrote, I would reread each chapter and wonder if anyone could understand and enjoy it. If the answer was affirmative, he continued writing. A mafia crime novel has to be entertaining to keep the reader awake. Knowing how to glimpse that, beyond that plot, there are many references scattered throughout the text, is just a plus. My challenge was actually another.
Which?
Finding a modern equivalence to what had already been written centuries ago. What is a Trojan horse in Providence? Who is Aphrodite and who is the Queen of Carthage?
And was it not a challenge for you to get the second part of a trilogy off the ground? They say that the middle book is the most complicated of all.
TRUE. In the second books it is decided if the story goes on and culminates or if, on the contrary, it dies there. Luckily for me, he walked me through the structure of the classics. A structure that has always attracted readers. I only limit myself to adapting it to the 21st century. If I've managed to do it, the story will work. But that's something for readers to judge.
In this novel, the protagonist makes the most iconic of American trips: he heads to California for a new beginning.
Iconic and at the same time personal. I left home at seventeen, traveled the world, and settled for a time in California. My character does something similar, albeit for very different reasons. And he ends up in Hollywood.
The city where dreams are born?
I would rather say where they die. Very few are lucky enough to see their expectations fulfilled. Movies and novels are the main culprits for these frustrations.
And what is a gang of gangsters doing there?
Much more than one can imagine. Since the 1930s, the mafia has always influenced the film industry in one way or another. It is a smaller organization if we compare it with that of other cities like New York or Chicago. An FBI officer called it the Mickey Mouse mob at the time. But what interested me the most in all of this is the symbiotic relationship that exists between gangsters and filmmakers. Movies have always been interested in the life of gangsters, and gangsters have always shown an interest in movies.
Running away with a baby in your arms and an old man with dementia is not easy.
Not at all. You have to hide but at the same time make breakfast, keep an eye on your father at the residence, find a babysitter, educate a child. And all this while you are being chased by people who either want to kill you or arrest you. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone.
And that's why he also talks about love.
Yes, indeed, it's not something I've written much about in my career. This was a challenge novel.
For the challenge, to get out of the mafia.
It is not easy, but it is possible. The truth is that the mafia is losing more and more power and influence and that is because the younger generations do not want to continue with the family legacy.
Is that a clue to your next book?
I can only anticipate that the relationship between the protagonist and his son will be deepened. That and we'll see a billionaire Danny in Las Vegas. And I've already talked a lot.
