Care Santos: "I had to cut this incredible love story short before it ended badly."

BarcelonaCare Santos (Mataró, 1970) has had the privilege of learning about her parents' love story from the very beginning through a rich correspondence. She had wanted to tell it for a long time, and now that she has finally been able to access the letters, she has been able to do so. The love that passes (Column / Destiny) There is little fiction but a lot of craftsmanship. The author of achievements such as Locked rooms (2011), Chocolate craving (Ramon Llull Prize 2014), Blue Diamond (2015) and The crazy bird (2023), which also triumphs with the young adult novel, dares to take on a very intimate story and questions what we really fall in love with.

This isn't the first time you've written about your family. Was it more difficult because it was your parents this time?

— Yes, it has been very difficult. In Blue Diamond I wrote about my grandmother and my maternal family, but there was a lot of fiction there, because I had to fill in a lot of gaps. This time there's less fiction and more craft, because I had to choose what to tell. And above all because it's very sensitive material.

Yes, there are times when you write that there are things you won't share. Has it been difficult to leave things out?

— Yes. I always wanted to write the story of how my parents met. How they met and fell in love. We all knew it because it was always told at home. Many years ago, I tried to turn it into a novel because it's so unique. However, at the time, I didn't have access to the letters, and my mother was still alive. These were two things that completely influenced me.

While she was alive, your mother never let you read the letters and you didn't try.

— No, I didn't want to do it if she didn't want me to. She had the right, although it really annoyed me that she wouldn't let me read them. They were hers, and I could do whatever I wanted; I could even have thrown them away, as she said she would do from time to time. It was her private life. She was a very private woman, and I suppose they revealed things we didn't want us to know about her.

She saved the ones your father wrote, and you were able to read them. But what about the ones she wrote?

— He threw his away many years ago. When I was born, those letters no longer existed.

To what extent did the fact that they met through letters influence their relationship?

— It left a lasting impression on them. When my father took the train to Barcelona with the intention of never returning to Seville, they barely knew each other physically. They'd only seen each other for a few days, but they'd shared all sorts of stories in letters. It was absolutely crazy.

In a relationship built through letters, there's always the danger of idealization...

— It's the question I ask in the novel, and one we should all ask ourselves at some point in our lives: what we fall in love with. Falling in love is always crazy. Afterward, the reasons for staying are probably more sensible.

Has your concept of love changed?

— My conception of the father has changed. In the letters, he was a young man, the same age my son is now. If he had been my son, I would have told him not to do anything he wanted to do. To slow down. My father always had a very serious demeanor. He was very sensible, and he surprised me. When I was born, he was already the father of my two older brothers, he had finished his medical degree, he spoke Catalan, and he was passionate about Catalonia... I've met another man.

And what is that man like?

— Very passionate and very naive. The whole family has discovered his past history, what happened in Seville. He had only told my mother through letters.

But your concept of your father has changed, and what about your relationship?

— It's been redemptive, because the story wasn't always so pretty. That unquestioning love of my father, his pursuit of the destiny he'd chosen, the certainty that it was worth leaving everything behind for my mother... It's been illuminating. Not just for me, but for the family too, because my father died 35 years ago and no one remembers what he did. Sometimes, things need to be relived to appreciate that they haven't always been as you thought they were. I understand why many people fell in love with him. He was a charmer.

There is more distance with the mother.

— She was colder, but also younger. My father had much clearer ideas because he was older and more experienced. Mom just wanted to marry a Sevillian, which is also very bizarre. She was a complex woman in every sense. I didn't want the novel to be read as a way of settling scores with her mother; that would be vulgar. It's also not a story about who I am or the search for identity. However, it wasn't all roses and violas, and I had to hint that with her mother, everything was more complicated.

Your grandmother had many prejudices against Andalusians.

— My grandmother campaigned against him as much as she could. At that time, there was a lot of prejudice against Andalusians, because that was when the great waves of migration occurred. My father was always very proud of his origins, and I was always proud of being a Charniega (Spanish woman). This duality has been very important to me.

When you emptied the apartment, you also discovered that your father had written a lot but had never published anything. What influence did this have on you in deciding to dedicate yourself to writing?

— I'm very excited because I've finally fulfilled his literary calling. I've watched him write all his life, but I've discovered many of his works: poetry, novels... and the surprises haven't ended yet. The other day I found a three-act comedy called Bread with tomatoI don't think he had the time or interest to find a publisher. At some point, he must have given up on his dream of being a writer. There's a letter in which he tells his mother that when he's 35, he'll write a novel because he doesn't think he'll have the necessary maturity before then. If he had stayed in Seville, I might be the daughter of the poet Antonio Santos.

Why did you decide not to tell the not so nice part?

— It wasn't the right time. Or, as Jordi Pujol said, it wasn't the right time. He wanted to tell the story of falling in love. At a book launch, he was asked Pedro Zarraluki if the story ended well. He replied that all stories end badly: it all depends on how you stretch them out. I had to cut this incredible, beautiful, and powerful story short before it ended badly.

You say it was a crazy love story. Maybe it fits with your father, but what about your mother? Apparently, she was more serious and distant, and very self-confident.

— She was very young, and her projection is also important. She listened to coplas, which was also quite picturesque, and she wanted a man who would tell her what the songs said. And, in her environment, there were none. With my father and in those letters, which gave her security and distance, she was a different woman. Only with my father was that way. Trying to understand what her mother was like has been a personal and literary exercise. I even spoke with specialists to analyze it from a psychological perspective. It has been beautiful and enriching.

It is a privilege to be able to know so closely the love of your parents.

— Yes, and I've been able to do so from the very beginning. Plus, the correspondence is abundant. My father wrote three letters a day. It's been like following his life in real time.