Black Corner: Dying in pieces
Let's not label novels like Toni Sala's (Sant Feliu de Guíxols, 1969), but neither should we deny the blackness of his literary soul, dark and existentialist. He owes as much to Michel Houellebecq, to Albert Camus's The Stranger, as to Patricia Highsmith, which as godfathers isn't bad at all. Readers of detective novels and page-turners, refrain. Here there is a corpse, and it's a wild boar. And there's no malice, just a traffic accident. But the victim that Toni Sala leaves on the table like one leaves what's in one's pockets when one gets home is us: our loneliness, our need for redemption, for company, to give meaning to history, to the stories that we are. Death always smells like shit, but we insist on having a dignified life and a worthy ending. We all fail.
Black corner
EDITORIAL / Third PartiesIt's no surprise that one of the protagonists is a commercially successful actor, gnawing at the doubt of whether he also has prestige, and Olga and Vadó, supporting characters, are lost in this world of ours with no god but ourselves. All three of them without a good story with a dissuasive ending, no longer happy, but bearable. Sala spares us nothing. He's not afraid to step outside the box, which is more than fine in this Catalan and Spanish literature of docile writers allergic to being weird. He goes too far and succeeds, he gets lost and looks at himself in every mirror. He runs into debt and doesn't pay. Escenaris is a great novel that closes a trilogy ( Persecució , Una família ), and Toni Sala is a terrific writer. He's been one for years.
'Like a lizard's skin in the sun', by Berta Piñán (Hoja de lata)The debut novel by Asturian poet Berta Piñán (Cañu, Cangues d'Onís, 1963), originally written in Asturian. The plot borders on cliché, but her literary talent creates a setting of patio cafes and bovine births, with characters who know how to communicate with each other. A rural thriller with a sense of purpose (common, narrative, and parody).
The second novel by Toni Sánchez Bernal (Tarragona, 1990), screenwriter, writer, and director. A woman who has been missing for twenty-seven years is executed in front of a police station. The plot kicks off the investigation by two characters who will try to uncover the truth between themselves.
Jordi Dausà (Cassà de la Selva, 1977) already made his own splash a few years ago with Lèmmings . Here, he flirts with the Homeric theme of the escape from Ithaca to distract himself a bit and get into trouble aboard a motorhome. A dark perspective, local color, and social novel delivered with tenacious style.
lavanguardia
