Daniel Arjona Madrid
Madrid
Updated Tuesday, April 2, 2024-08:33
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"Hello, I just finished the first one and I'm looking forward to starting the second one. I've managed to get hooked like when I was a teenager and they forced me to turn off the light and I kept reading with a flashlight under the covers.
If I think about why, it's hard for me to give the reasons."
. Anabel Amorós says it in the Telegram group in which more than 200 enthusiastic readers comment on
Blackwater
, a dark and very addictive novel in six installments written by the as productive as little-known American
Michael McDowell
(1950-1999), published in English ago. four decades now and whose recent rediscovery has exploded the Spanish publishing industry.
"The response has been brutal
," confesses Jan Martí, editor of
Blackie Books
. Of the first four volumes of the series (
La riada
,
El dique
,
La casa
and
La guerra
) they have already sold more than 60,000 copies, they have just ordered a reissue for the incredible number of 100,000 copies and there are still two installments to come out, the fifth (
La fortune
, April 3) and sixth (
Lluvia
, April 17). This is the biggest launch in the history of a label known for enviable marketing that is capable of
successfully
hipsterizing Homero, Cervantes or Jardiel Poncela.
More than 20 reading clubs throughout Spain discuss books and every 15 days, when a new delivery arrives, the queues overwhelm the bookstores.
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But there is more. In times when reading exhibitions on networks triumph, when publishers forget the critics of traditional media and seek to seduce the
booktokers
who prescribe their favorite books on TikTok to the youthful crowds that follow them,
Blackwater
has burst in and dominated the digital conversation overnight. Patricia Fernández (@patriciafedz), for example, with 422,000 followers, claims in a video on the Chinese network to be
"completely hooked"
after reading the first three books "in just one weekend."
It is true that there is something as irresistible as it is difficult to describe in these books whose plot unfolds slowly, with shocking twists and measured supernatural touches. A small and unknown town in Alabama, which is not by chance called Perdido, in the deep South of the United States, at the beginning of the 20th century in the years of Jim Crow, when black people who were born slaves still live. A location marked by the confluence between two rivers with muddy and putrid waters, the Perdido and the Blackwater, which one day overflow their banks and submerge it under the waters. A powerful and matriarchal family, the Caskeys, who dominate
the town from their logging business and do and undo at will while Saracen disagreements and dark secrets eat them away from the inside
. And a mysterious woman, Elinor Dammert, who appears out of nowhere to immediately dominate the scene.
"Amazed"
How did the crazy idea of publishing in our country an unknown southern gothic
pulp serial
come about with a mechanism as unprecedented as biweekly delivery? One day, two years ago, a French editor friend told the editor of Blackie Books that he was reading this novel in installments by an author whom Stephen King, among many others, idolized. As soon as they read it on the label they were "marveled", and were lucky enough to be able to contract its rights immediately. "The idea of publishing this novel in six installments comes from the author himself, Michael McDowell, who for its publication in one of those collections of best-selling
paperbacks
, in 1983, demanded that it be published in six volumes, one each month, so "Similar to the soap operas of the 19th century.
We publish it every two weeks instead of a month
. It seemed more appropriate to us because of how consumption times have accelerated since the rise of series."
Author Michael McDowell
"In fact ,
Blackwater
," he continues, "has a very similar operation to that of an HBO series, both in its narrative curve and in the way in which it is received and
consumed
by the audience. For example, as soon as Volume III was released, There was a Telegram group with hundreds of people commenting on each book as if it were a soap opera, putting the text in blurry mode if there are
spoilers
. A bit of what happened when a new installment of the Count of Monte Cristo arrived in the 19th century, a bit "What happens when people comment on Twitter about the end of a chapter of a series...
McDowell's proposal is very interesting, visionary on many levels
."
What are the keys to this enormous success? Jan Martí mentions the novelty of its serial release, in the manner of serials from the 19th century, but also as if he were anticipating the success of today's series. He also points out the unapologetic mix between the family saga, the historical novel, the
thriller
and the horror that makes it similar to some
very popular current cultural products that blur the barriers between genres.
"'Blackwater' operates similar to an HBO series both in its narrative curve and in its consumption"
"But it is also an exceptional novel with the soul of a classic," explains Blackie's editor. "It had been unjustly forgotten for being part of those collections of
paperbacks
, cheap books that were sold in large quantities in the 70s and 80s.
But in reality it hides a complex, profound work, very well written, and at the same time addictive
.
Blackwater
is a Fascinating and disturbing journey through the history of a family, the Caskeys, and the history of America, at heart, but it is also the deep, complex and sometimes terrifying story of a woman, Elinor Dammert, an unforgettable character. It is the story of two impressive rivers. We could compare it with novels such as One Hundred Years of Solitude to Poe's
The House of Usher
, through Shirley Jackson's
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
, or the stories of Elizabeth Gaskell. But there are those who have compared it to Lovecraft, with
Succession
, with
Dynasty
...
What surprised me most was the literary quality
. McDowell wrote very, very well.
The best writer I know
, Stephen King said of him."
Every posthumous triumph is always a little sad. Michael McDowell was a true literary phenomenon who died of AIDS at only 49 years old, after writing dozens of novels and thousands of pages with a work capacity worthy of a Balzac or a Dickens and who, like them, opted for the novel. in installments in search of the greatest possible dissemination of his work. He also worked as a film and television scriptwriter in films and series such as
Beetlejuice
(1988),
The Nightmare Before Christmas
(1993),
Tales from the Crypt
and
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
.
Blackwater
is very modern in some of its themes. McDowell was openly
gay, liberal, and that is very noticeable in the series, which seems written today instead of almost half a century ago
. They are books with a very marked feminist consciousness, without proclamations, but with a particularly sensitive look towards gender stereotypes. All the protagonists are women, and the men are left out. Shameless, complex and contradictory women on whose decisions all the plot twists depend.
Sometimes cruel, sometimes compassionate, hard-working and responsible for the wealth of the family clan
, they represent the complete opposite of the image of the housewife of the time.