May 1968 did not reach everyone or everywhere, because it was not the same to live, for example, in Barcelona or Castelló, as in Llucena, a Valencian town that does not reach two thousand inhabitants in Alcalatén. It is there, in her town, where Emma Zafón sets her first solo novel, Casada i callada (Empúries), although she had previously published No iba a salir y me lié (Roca, 2016), co-written with Chimo Bayo around the bakalao route.
In his new book, Zafón “wanted to talk about my mother’s generation, those born in the late Franco regime, in the sixties, and who became young during the late Franco regime and the transition, who began to insert themselves massively in the market work, but which did not detach itself from responsibilities and domestic tasks”. She conveys it through Aurora, who first lives an intense love story, yes, and marries and has children, but discovers that her dream had another face, “violence at a time when it did not exist the concept of gender violence, which didn’t even have this nomenclature, and of the process that is experienced specifically in a small town, with all its complexities, what they will say, the social pressure of the time” they take as model women he knew: “I had three or four references who had gone through similar situations, and to explain it was also to pay tribute to them”.
Although he places the novel in a time of change, with the arrival of democracy and divorce, but “with the mental framework of the time, because they had been told that love was forever, that the husband would be forever and they would grow old together… and no”. The writer and journalist is aware that this “still happens”, and even more so in rural environments: “Criticize the model of neo-rurals, which has become very romanticized, there are people who believe that living in a village means that they bring pumpkins to you from the garden every week, they give you oil, live a quiet life, sleep, go for a walk…”, but when it comes to the truth, everything is smaller: “There is very little sociability, friends are who we are, from a young age, you don’t have the option of making more friends, and there comes an age when everyone pairs up and you become very depressed. I’m critical of these dynamics, which weigh more on women, and when you’re a housewife, they still tell you that you must have something for which no one wants you. Instead of men it is even said ‘look how ready no woman has to endure’. If I had done what I have done in my village… my mother, they would have burned me at the stake!”
In fact he also defines it as “a book against marriage, because it is necessary to deconstruct the model so rigid from centuries ago, that it seems there is no other way to think”. But even if he makes “a lot of defense of singleness and other forms of affection, falling in love, we all fall in love, for God’s sake. I’m not a caper, huh?”. After all, “I’m not going with a shotgun from house to house to take women to an orgy. I’m just saying that we’ve been with this model for a long time and it’s great for whoever suits it, but what if we open our eyes a little? I am very surprised that in the middle of 2023 the criticism of the monogamous couple and marriage receives insults as a response”, he says, recalling the insults that a priest hurled at him, and the fact is that his articles in the Valencian press have a strong echo in the networks
But the book also shows the evolution of that society, even a certain openness towards LGTBI identities: “I mention it, but it is still like this. There is no one openly gay in the village, and then people tell you that if they are, we all know it. But if he can’t behave as he really is… It seems to be very normalized, but I understand that they don’t come out of the closet, because there is a lot of halter. It’s incredible, even now.”
