In Rafa quiere que tengamos un hijo (Acantilado), Gregorio Casamayor (Cañada Juncosa, Cuenca, 1955) constructs with humor and sagacity three stories of flight, betrayal, and crime, triggered by the phrase that gives the novel its title.
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The stories in your novel are triggered by the same phrase: “Rafa wants us to have a child.” Is this the greatest trigger for life possibilities? There are seed phrases that are sown in the mind and, with time, germinate, sprout, branch out, and come to produce stories. Rafa’s proposal, so positive, so optimistic, can also hide a trap… And that’s why it’s unsettling. And yes, of course, there are few things that change life as much as having a child, for example, having two or three or four…
The novel has a lot of playfulness: constructing three different stories with common motifs. Deep down, does the same thing happen to all of us? Literature is also play. I wanted there to be three stories to show that it was possible to write, from the same phrase, three different tales, with different registers, from diverse points of view. Only three, to encourage others to tell more. In the book of conversations between Hitchcock and Truffaut, there is an anecdote about a director who always gets his best ideas while dreaming; when he manages to remember one, it turns out to be boy wants girl, but girl doesn’t want boy. And so we continue, from Adam, Eve, and the Serpent.
What book turned you into a reader? The Master of Ballantrae, by Robert Louis Stevenson. During adolescence, I read indiscriminately everything within my reach; I remember this novel perfectly, although it could have been any other.
And into a writer? The Tunnel, by Ernesto Sabato. It is written in the first person and I was surprised how the protagonist, with the help of the author, could distort / manipulate / falsify the facts to play with the reader. But it could have been Last Evenings with Teresa, by Marsé; or Hopscotch, by Cortázar; or any work from “the Spanish picaresque novel.”
What is the best review you have received? A friend told me she cried while reading The Life and Deaths of Ethel Jurado. A stranger wrote to me to say how he had identified with the protagonist of Los días rotos and how it had helped him understand what had happened to him.
And the worst? My family still mocks me for the title of La sopa de Dios. They have no compassion.
What book do you currently have on your nightstand? I find it uncomfortable to read in bed. But I just finished Real Cases, by Yasmina Reza.
One you couldn’t finish? Many, if they don’t hook me after a certain number of pages, I leave them.
What is the most beautiful bookstore in the world? In New Delhi, I found a bookstore on a corner whose walls were made of stacks of books; inside, there was a space from which the bookseller attended. I took a photograph of it. And in Buenos Aires, there is El Ateneo.
What song would you use as a self-portrait? I grew up in a neighborhood of Barcelona near the sea, so Mediterráneo, by Serrat. But Days Like This, by Van Morrison, would also work for me.
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Which one is on loop in your head? Que tinguem sort, by Lluís Llach, I sing it to my grandson Marcel. And from time to time Es caprichoso el azar, by Serrat, because it is also a seed phrase.
The movie you’ve seen the most times? The Godfather I and II. Also because they are part of a family Christmas ritual.
A recent premiere you loved? Perfect Days, by Wim Wenders. And also, though not as recent, The Beasts, Society of the Snow…
What was the last series you binged? None. But I recommend The Night Of to anyone who hasn’t seen it.
In which museum would you live? As a home, in the Sorolla Museum. But at the Thyssen, they keep Hotel Room, by Hopper for me.
Do you have any guilty pleasures in cultural matters? I collect books I won’t be able to read: versions of Don Juan, love correspondence of writers…
What job would you never accept? I couldn’t act as a stooge in a political party; they also call them straw men or front men.
What is your favorite historical event? NASA’s attempt, in 2022, to deflect the asteroid Dimorphos.
What is socially overrated? Social media and alleged content creators.
If you hadn’t dedicated yourself to writing, you would have liked to be… If I had the necessary talent, a physicist. I would give anything to understand string theory or extra dimensions or the functioning of black holes…
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