Juliet is 11 years old. She had always been a diligent girl, although her life has not been easy. She is the daughter of Guillermina, a single mother who had her when she was 16 years old. But now, her course has gone wrong. She already gives it up. In the Wolf’s Den (Seix Barral), the latest novel by Elvira Lindo, begins with the first-person narration of that girl who, after that ill-fated course, goes on vacation to her mother’s town, La Sabina, where she meets Emma, ??a woman who lives in the forest, with whose help he will begin to heal some of his wounds.
The protagonist of En la boca del lobo does not know how to tell what is happening to her, but Lindo has found a way to explain “the trauma that child abuse entails without the need to show blood.” The writer, who has always been interested in the world of children, tells the details of her new novel, aimed at adults, in this interview with La Vanguardia.
La Sabina, the town where Julieta spends her summers, is very similar to Ademuz, where you spent part of your childhood. Have you wanted to rescue the memories of that time in the novel?
Ademuz, my mother’s town, is divided into towns and villages. My uncles were bakers and distributed throughout the region. Everyone knew each other in the area and I have many roots there, because my childhood was very nomadic and that was the place where I anchored. The people of Ademuz emigrated to Valencia or Tarragona, where my father worked, who was an engineer and who placed many people from the town on the works. He was very loved.
How was that return?
When I returned to prepare the novel, a woman came and told me that she had taken care of me and my brothers when we were little. I kept a photo of her with the four of us. She remembered me so much that she portrayed my personality and I was blown away. I went up to the village and fell in love with the place whose biodiversity is incredible and creates an atmosphere that is what I wanted. Its literary possibilities are endless.
Guillermina and Emma, ??the two adult women in the novel, live thinking about finding a partner. Are women still dependent on men?
Being very different, both are dependent. Guillermina, as a result of a childhood trauma, needs a man who defines her as her person. She doesn’t have a purpose in life, she can’t take responsibility for anything, she gets carried away. When a woman like that is very pretty, she is at the risk of being the first to arrive. Emma is different, very progressive and sexually open, she thinks she can live anywhere. She arrives in a small community and believes that if she lets herself be carried away by pleasure there will be no consequences, but she discovers that there are, and very serious ones.
How do you create your characters?
I don’t create characters that respond to my political or social thoughts, but people who follow their own destiny and I base myself on people I’ve met, although not on someone in particular, but on different things I’ve seen. Guillermina, for example, is destined for tragedy because of her mixture of beauty and thoughtlessness.
You have written children’s literature and have always been interested in your work for children. Because?
In A corazón abierto I come out with my nine-year-old voice and that is because I am attracted to helpless, innocent characters, beings who are on the brink of danger because someone is going to come to violate their innocence. I have always had empathy for people who are not prepared for the malice of the world.
How did the idea of ??tackling such a sensitive issue as child abuse come about?
It arose naturally because I have two very close cases, two people with whom I have had long conversations. The victim of child abuse or neglect tells you in a whisper when you gain her trust and she knows you are going to treat her gently. My purpose was to tell it in silence in some way so that the reader imagines, respecting the information that had been communicated to me in conversations so spaced out in time. They never told specific things that were super delicate. I give the girl a voice to explain her pain. It was a moral obligation to transmit, to make understand what the trauma and the wound are, but without delving so that the blood is not seen.
How did you materialize that purpose?
I found a way to tell it as if it were a classic tale. It is a novel for adults and it is not necessary to explain everything, it can be done through omission. He could recount the fear, the trauma. When something is told very bluntly, the victim who hears it goes back to where she wants to come from. That is to revictimize, that is why you have to narrate carefully because someone listens to you or reads you.
Can those wounds be healed?
You are not going to get rid of that wound, but you can have a life and that is the message: that you are not a victim all your life.
How is it possible that mothers do not see that their children are being abused when it is happening at home?
Mothers usually protect their children, but there are cases of neglect. The drama that Juliet suffers is that she is left helpless. But the curse can be broken. Juliet is not condemned to be a bad mother, quite the contrary.
