• Serial killer on 'Little Unimportant Lies'
  • Romantic literature.Reconversion and freedom

It is okay to undo prejudices, take genres of literature that, in principle, we think are little, who know overheated dinner, and find in them complex and moving stories and characters . This is what happens with chick lit, the evolution of the romantic novel of all life towards a kind of feminine, urban and almost comic realism. It is easy to recognize gender: professional women, sophisticated and only apparently self-confident, tending to self-parody and neurosis , fight for their freedom between humorous romantic longings and rather damn gender expectations.

An example from right now: Nine Perfect Strangers (edited by Sum of Letters), by Australian writer Liane Moriarty. Moriarty is known for being the author of Little Big Lies , the novel that later became the Little Big Lies series (starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, two of Moriarty's biggest propagandists). This story started from the ways of the chick lit and became a criminal intrigue. In Nine Perfect Unknown Men, the journey is to bring the genre to the fish novel.

As the title announces, five women and four men meet for the first time in their lives in a lonely seaside resort in the middle of Australia. "I was looking for that feeling a little Agatha Christie , so I liked the idea of ​​inventing a historical and isolated mansion in an inclement and lonely landscape, so that the characters felt trapped and without exit", explains Moriarty to EL MUNDO.

At first, each character conforms to a recognizable mold: the very handsome and consumer gay, the lady with menopausal hot flashes and fondness for wine , the man obsessed with control, the rich girl with operated breasts ... Then things start to happen. The management of the spa has a very positive opinion of the therapeutic use of ecstasy and at first everything is very funny, but little by little, the characters discover their truths and the comedy becomes drama.

The grace is that all the characters of Nine perfect strangers seek happiness as if it were a consumer good, but only through the unveiling of their sadness can they find any meaning in life. “I suppose we only recognize happiness when it has already passed and we can classify it. We suffered a loss and thought, 'How happy I was and didn't realize it.' The current confinement is the example, we think about all the freedom that we enjoyed before in our normal life and it seems wonderful to us, ”says Moriarty.

“Someone once wrote a review about one of my books that said reading to me is like having a pink-cosmo [a vodka, blueberry, and lime cocktail that became popular in Sex in New York ] to which we added a pinch of cyanide. I love that definition, "continues Moriarty. But it's something that happens casually. I'm not mixing light and light and dark and heavy with a formula. I just start with an idea and try to follow it wherever it takes me. I suppose it is life that is like this: one moment is a tragedy, the other a comedy . People go to funerals and laugh.

"I know a character is complex enough when I feel like spending time writing about him," continues the author. “There are also characters that don't have to be too complicated. Its function is to advance the action and the main characters ».

In Nine Perfect Strangers , the most important personality is that of Frances, a 47-year-old romance novel writer who was very successful and no longer has it just like she had a boyfriend online and no longer does (actually, she was a scammer. ). She has horrible sweat bumps, her back hurts, and feminist journalists tease her novels . The truth is that I just wanted to do some humor with the pretentious stereotypes of literature. I have been ridiculed many times for doing commercial fiction. Frances writes a romance novel, so she has it even worse.

Also interesting is the role of the plot men of Nine Perfect Strangers. Almost all of them are good people who are ill-prepared to express themselves and understand the problems in their lives. "In Little Lies Unimportant I created characters who were true villains and I had to make it up in this book, fill it with decent people caught up in tragic situations they never decided on."

Is there a thread with Moriarty's other novels? Did I really write those books? I don't know if there is more to it than the fact that they deal with the contemporary world, that I'm interested in families and personal relationships ... Well, I realized that I have recurring tics: for example, the character who desperately wants to have a baby and in the end he has it . It happened to myself, I had two children, so I should think about leaving her.

We only need to ask about the ecstasy : "The book is also an exploration of what is positive, negative and sometimes tragic in drug use." One of the stories unveiled in the spa of his novel has to do with a teenage suicide, an especially incomprehensible and stupid one, perhaps related to the drug or perhaps to an asthma medicine. «I wanted to write about the role of luck, how it transforms our lives. There are those who play the lottery and there are those who suffer the suicide of a son.

In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • literature
  • culture

CultureWhen Ava Gardner reigned in Spain

Culture Paco Roca's recommendations: Robert Graves, The Rolling Stones, Yasuhiro Ozu and Larry David

CultureThe mystery of Carmen Mola, the faceless 'bestseller': "More than a mask, my pseudonym is a shield"

See links of interest

  • Last News
  • English translator
  • TV programming
  • Quixote
  • Work calendar
  • Daily horoscope
  • Santander League Ranking
  • League calendar
  • TV Movies
  • Private schools
  • Cut notes 2019
  • Richest in Spain
  • Universities of Spain
  • Themes
  • Barça - Club Joventut de Badalona
  • Eintracht Frankfurt - FC Schalke 04
  • Aston Villa - Sheffield United
  • Eibar - Athletic Club
  • Osasuna - Atlético de Madrid