Transforming pain into beauty is the message of "last days of my parents"the most recent novel by Mexican author Mónica Lavín, who wrote the book with colors in the manner of a Matisse painting.
"I think that what writing has is like an eagerness for an aesthetic search. I did not know that by facing those days when my parents are no longer here, what I was going to do was rebuild that bond of love with me and mine with them."the author assured this Saturday in an interview with Efe.
The 249-page novel, edited by Planeta, is written with an intimate tone, in which Lavín recounts memories, expresses emotions and philosophizes about absence, while creating images of his parents’ lives with words.
"They lived with a spirit of appetite and joy for life, they came from difficult situations. They had to forge a path that was freely given to me. I lived among books, for example, and my father studied until the third year of secondary school and was orphaned from his father since he was two years old."reveals the author.
With a path traveled as a storyteller and with several novels, including "I the worst"winner of the Elena Poniatowska Ibero-American Prize, the writer created this time her most personal work, which has confessions, reflection on death and paternity and also gratitude.
"Life is worthwhile, risking love as a couple, building a family, looking at art, painting, listening to music, that enriches a way of being in the world. All this is something that was communicated to me and given to me. For that there is gratitude"he added.
a naked woman
Write "last days of my parents" For the author, it implied undressing before her readers, to the point that by the end of the book, those who read her know what the shape of her neck is like, that of her head, if her thighs are long, and if her hands have veins or not.
It is that Lavín counts the parts of the slender body that he inherited from each of his parents, after detailing the sensitivity for art that came from his mother and the passion for writing, from his father.
"I know what are the points that squeeze my heart again, but of course I smiled and of course I woke up saying today what I am going to write about. For example, the thighs thing was wonderful, when my mother revealed to me that I have them like my father. At 90 years old I knew that we have a physical trait that I had never noticed"bill.
The anecdotes of the holidays, the joy of coexistence is combined with the sadness of some moment of sick leave or due to the blow suffered by a member of the clan. In catharsis, Lavín emphasizes the details and leaves the message that pain can be turned into love.
"We are made of love; we are born for the love of our parents. No one looks at you or loves you in the same way, there are other types of love that surround you. My mother, every article of mine that appeared in the newspaper, read it, spoke to me and commented on it. That no longer exists; I no longer have the devoted reader that my mother was"reveals.
A woman in an armchair
Mónica Lavín cries with nouns, verbs and poetic phrases like when she assures that only breadcrumbs stand between the orphanhood of the father and that of the mother. She complains about not being able to work as a daughter anymore, but she also celebrates because her parents lived a good life.
"That’s a nice thought, to say they lived. Even what they wanted to do and could not, my father being a writer, my mother a painter, remained as a floating desire, so that my sister is a plastic artist and I am a writer."Explain.
In the book there is a family crisis. Sad, the mother remains seated in the armchair; then Monica takes into account that she is like the figure in a painting by Matisse, but without colors: "Woman on armchair looking at the terrace".
"My mom would take the scarves out of her drawer and instead of putting them on, she would make beautiful cushions. They were Matisse paintings. Also, she used to read to my sister and me when we were kids, we would open art books and talk about Matisse"reveals and rounds off the idea of his writing as a painting by the French artist.