Victoria González Torralba (Barcelona, 1966) enters a cafeteria near Francesc Macià to do an interview and can't help but smile. It is the eve of the BCNegra literature festival, which begins today and will last until Sunday 11, and she is one of the protagonists. This time it is not she who asks the questions, but rather the one who answers them. It seems strange to her after a lifetime of working as a journalist, but it is something she has had to get used to since she started publishing books. She greets the waiter, chooses a table, sits down and, finally, confesses the reason for her joy. She just found out on Whatsapp that her second book, Good Times (Siruela), is among the finalists for the Novelpol award, in the detective genre. At the end of November, he already won the Paco Camarasa for crime novel, which was “a great illusion”, not only because of the visibility that something like this gives, but because “he had met Paco in person - who died in 2018 - and he was an admirable person.”
The novel portrays Spain in the 70s. A time of splendor and tourist awakening in which Laura, a young woman who has lost her parents and who lives with her aunt and uncle—an authoritarian man and a woman with a harsh character—rescues from the sea. next to his boss the leg of a corpse. Despite her efforts to avoid attracting attention since she was a child, the girl ends up finding herself involved in a mystery in which she will be the involuntary protagonist, because she feels the responsibility of solving it, even though many people are not interested in her doing so.
Although it is fiction, the story is based on a real event. “One day I read a news story about some legs that appeared on the coast of Canada and that arrived there due to currents. That shocked me. Then, I knew that a leg was going to appear in the next thing I wrote. I didn't know what else would happen, but that was clear to me.” The fact that the plot begins with the appearance of a body does not limit Good Times to an exclusive crime novel, in the author's opinion. “I don't really know what it is. Labels bind. It is also a novel of initiation and adventure.” In fact, Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson, is very present at all times, starting with the name of one of the main protagonists, Juan Sil, a clear allusion to the pirate Tall John Silver.
González Torralba always had writing in mind, but it was difficult for him to find the right moment to take the step. He worked for many years in the media and there the pen, the notebook and the computer were his greatest allies, but he always thought of something else. He wanted to write a novel and his father, the writer Francisco González Ledesma, encouraged him to do so. “He told me to write, but I kept everything to myself.” It is ironic and “a twist of fate” that she ended up paying attention to him when he was no longer there. “My father was about to finish Worst Ways to Die. He had only the end left and, then, he passed away. He had an editorial commitment and I knew the importance he gave to that, so I finished it.”
Despite the grief he was going through, he found the experience pleasant, so he decided to continue. And what better than to do it accompanied by Inspector Méndez, one of the most mythical characters that her father created. “We had always talked about her having to write a prequel to the commissioner, but he didn't give her time. So I got up the courage and tried to do it myself.” Some time later, the author's first novel was born, Llámame Méndez (2017).
“I wrote it, I showed it to my family and they thought it was good, and then I showed it to the world. I tried to preserve the style and tone he used so that the reader would not identify me. I had read a lot of all his work and knew him well, so I could imagine what made sense to put in and what didn't. It was a challenge, but I loved writing it. I thought it was nice to bring the character full circle and end there. He flew with my father. Never say never, but everything indicates that we will not see him again.”
With this latest novel, however, “I have had to embark on a literary journey alone and find my own voice. It is a process of doubting. You have the feeling that you have a thousand ways to be right and, at the same time, a thousand ways to be wrong. In the end, I said to myself: 'Well, Vicky, focus and do what you would like to read and that's it.' And that's what I've done, flow and let myself go. I hope the reader does it with me,” she concludes.
