Manuel Jabois has a columnist inside. A columnist who, in turn, helps the novelist in himself. Together, the three have just co-produced a new novel, Mirafiori (Alfaguara), which completes a kind of trilogy in which characters, moments and a theme that is as universal as it is special intersect: love. Jabois, EL PAÍS journalist, born in Sanxenxo (Pontevedra) in 1978, invites us to talk about all this. And since our Style Book demands that we take care of you, we will take care of you.
Questions. His book is about love, a love overwhelmed by many crossroads and the protagonist seems determined to always choose the worst option. How do you define it?
Answer. A very beautiful thing happens: readers define the book much better than I do. What you’re saying didn’t occur to me. For me it is a revolutionary story because it is about a girl who meets a boy, falls in love and then falls out of love again. And what happens every second we’re here seemed original enough to write about. Basically that’s what it’s about. After that, every love and every biography is full of seams, ghosts and pain. And the beautiful thing is that despite everything, many survive and manage to provide much more light than darkness at the end of the path.
Q Do you believe in possible, eternal love, but also in impossible love?
R. Yes, yes, of course, in fact this is the result of the frustration of not having it. It is written somewhat humorously, quite light, I don’t like to overload the ink. When I tell something that might be sad and difficult, I need the opportunity to tell it so that people feel comfortable. That’s why there is love, a lot of tenderness and at the end of each chapter and the book there is a flame. I like to think that there is more light and that when you look back, the first thing you see is that it wasn’t a big deal, neither the joy nor the sadness; and secondly, it’s always worth it.
Q Mention humor. Do you dare to define your literature in any way?
R. Of course with humor. It is not the axis of my literature, but it is a fairly recognizable vehicle, a sense of my own humor that is recognizable thanks to my texts in the press. There are certain twists in Malaherba, a novel in which it is the parents who love their children the least. “Miss Marte” is about the comfort of lying about the truth, which really inspired me to write as a journalist because it’s the most subversive thing you can say. And in Mirafiori they talk about the mourning of the dead for the living: what would happen if the dead did not come to an end? There is a lot of talk about the grief of the living, but who thinks about the dead, their grief, who they miss and why. I think there is a pattern in these three stories, plus there are characters that move from one to the other.
Q Do you consider it a trilogy?
R. Vaguely yes. Not a typical trilogy, but time and space are the same in all three. It is compatible. There are some recurring themes in all three.
The journalist and writer Manuel Jabois at the Lúa restaurant in Madrid on October 24th. Jaime Villanueva
Q Do you think love or lack of love lasts longer?
R. Probably love, because after love comes heartbreak and after that love takes a different form. There is a period of hostility and cooling down, but when this ends, love returns in another form, which is not the original infatuation. I love all the people I have loved, all the people I have fallen out of love with. Not in the first year or the first six months, because there has been a breakup and it is always very difficult. But then yes. One of my best friends is my son’s mother. How much I love her! And what a different way to love her than before!
Q So heartbreak is just an episode of love?
R. I think so. Damn, a long heartbreak is terrible. The narrator of this story is the result of a trauma of separation, grief, heartbreak and not living that lasts five years instead of six months. It ends with the mind being colonized by memory. That’s why time is so important in this novel and why I play with it a lot, with three timelines. If time didn’t advance, we would end up like the protagonist, crazy or deformed.
Q The bride sees ghosts and the dead visit her. Do you believe in this type of communication?
R. No, but I have great respect for those who say they have it. I have spoken to people who sense presence, who speak to the dead, who receive messages, and they are people who have nothing to do with the paranormal business or with the usual scams that people do to take advantage of more naive people.
Q Why did you choose this topic?
R. I wanted to experience as closely as possible what impact the paranormal would have on me, a completely rational human being. What would happen if you or I saw a ghost one day, who would we tell? I would wait until I saw it again to believe I was in my right mind, and even if I saw it again I would doubt it. I don’t know if I would share the secret with anyone. This novel is about two lovers who think about who they would tell something to that they would tell absolutely no one. She can tell him whatever she wants because he is completely in love. And this secret is bigger than the two of them, than the relationship itself, it is a kind of expression of their love.
Q In search of the trace of his love, the protagonist delves into the networks, but Jabois doesn’t use WhatsApp. Because?
R. For eliminating a communication channel that needed to be removed at a time in my life when I was overusing it. I wrote too much on WhatsApp and read too much. I’m a guy who constantly wastes time and puts things off. I wasted many paragraphs writing on WhatsApp. At the end of the lockdown I decided to end it, I had too many groups, there were about 300 unanswered for months and years and I have text messages. I thought there were people who, when it comes to texting you, might change their mind if it costs 15 cents.
Q He has put a price on communicating with you.
R. I set a price for my requests (laughs).
Q How do you write? Is it unsafe? Do you correct a lot?
R. Yes, I have a problem with this and with my editor because I don’t show anything at all until I think it’s perfect and presentable. I’m very bad with deliveries, it takes a long time and I’m very insecure when showing it to anyone. Something happened to me with the novel that happened to me with journalism when I was 19, and it’s very beautiful: uncertainty. I’m not telling you that I’m absolutely sure when I write in the newspaper, but I can know whether something is right or wrong, whether this report or this interview can say more, whether I published this column because It’s my day but it’s not the column of my life… I have no idea about the novel. I have the same nerves, the same insecurity and the same excitement as when I started at a newspaper, and I really like that. I am chaotic, disorganized, undisciplined. Of course I have no idea about the ending. If I knew, I probably wouldn’t write it anymore, I would stop writing. Over time, I find that I enjoy putting the pieces of the puzzle together. It has sometimes happened to me that I found a story, with a beginning and an end, and I told it so much that it was already written, it already had an audience, and then I didn’t want to write it. I can’t remember long periods of time when I write, I never know how I’ll manage to finish it, it’s been so strange with these crazy schedules. There’s never been a linear week where I say: I’ve written 10,000 words. I’ve planned it many times, but I almost miraculously completed it on the Horn in August.
Q Does the novelist help the columnist more or vice versa?
R. The columnist helps the novelist more. He helps him and sometimes trips him up. When I had written 40 pages of Malaherba, I realized that it contained ten columns. I had the inertia to make my protagonist think instead of walk. Constant. The columnist came out and it really bothered me. I collected these columns, I placed them where I needed to put them, in the newspaper column, and I let the protagonists run. Then I found a sound. The novelist doesn’t help the columnist.
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