Maria Climent: "Who has the desire to make love to someone who is always angry?"

Barcelona"I was still an insecure woman with a complex and my self-esteem on the floor. Maybe I am nothing more than a victim of my generation," thinks Júlia, the protagonist of Punt de no retorn (L'Altra Editorial), the new novel by Maria Climent (Amposta, 1985). After the effervescent debut of Gina (2019) and being a finalist for the Òmnium award with A casa teníem un himne (2023), the writer from the Ebre region returns to bookstores with the brave, intimate, and funny story of a mother in her forties immersed in a galloping existential crisis. Worn out by an exhausting motherhood, Júlia will head to London with the longing to rediscover herself and to be happy again. Her journey –geographical, physical, and above all internal– is a rollercoaster of eccentricities, sex, and emotional highs and lows, narrated with a precise literary pulse and strongly linked to the current moment.

Why do you turn a vital crisis into the literary engine of this story?

— It seemed like a very juicy topic that, at the same time, gives a lot of room for comedy. The novel is a drama that, in the end and depending on how you look at it, can seem comic. Having a woman in the middle of a life crisis, who starts doing somewhat absurd things, gave me a lot to work with. Furthermore, for my generation, this crisis is quite frequent. The 40s are an age that lends itself to people making somewhat crazy decisions.

What happens at 40 years old?

— It is a moment in which you realize that you have made irreversible decisions. At least that is what happens to Júlia. On the other hand, she also sees that she is no longer in time to do most of the things she wanted to do and has not done.

You came from Gina, which in a way was an autofiction, and from A casa teníem un himne, which moved completely away from you. Where does Punt de no retorn stand, in terms of genre?

— The premise of Gina was true, it started from something that had happened to me, but I fictionalized the rest of the plot. My life is not as thrilling as Gina's, there wasn't enough to move the story forward. We share some things, but more than half of the story is fiction. It was also a first novel and I was playing it very safe. A casa teníem un himne is 100% fiction, and this one too. The fact that Júlia is the same age as me and has a child the same age as mine is a device that helps me write. 

Motherhood is one of the great themes of the novel. What approach did you want to give it?

— Júlia realizes that becoming a mother has made her disappear as a person. She has poured so much into motherhood that she has become a person she doesn't want to be around. Mòn, her partner, says to her: “Who feels like making love to someone who is always angry?” Júlia wants what happens to her to happen to her as a person, not to Júlia the mother, to Júlia the partner, or to Júlia as part of an infrastructure that maintains the home. Another one of the phrases from the novel is: “When I gave birth, I erased myself from the map of my own life.” And then she says: “Later, I learned that this is what we all do.” It is nothing exceptional, but it is a bit like that.

Her friends who have also become mothers share the same feeling. Is it an inevitable issue, intrinsic to motherhood?

— Before becoming a mother, you might expect that this won't happen to you. You wait for the baby with great excitement, and the period of early childcare is idealized, but then reality hits you like a slap that sends you flying. It shouldn't be inevitable, but from what I've been reading and seeing in my surroundings, the most common thing is this: erasing yourself or dedicating at least a few years of your life practically 100% to childcare. It doesn't matter what one's own needs are, what Júlia might want, what she might need, her vocations. Everything ends up sacrificed.

And, despite everything, she does not disown her nor does she regret the creature, whom she loves with all her heart.

— Everyone tells you it's worth it, but that doesn't mean it isn't extremely hard and there are moments when we think: “My God, where am I, to what extent does one have to sacrifice oneself?” Júlia asks herself: “How do you demonstrate infinite love?” You can't, you could never say enough, and what example do you set as a mother? Will the child remember me like this, as a tired woman?

Júlia has the feeling that the domestic burden is distributed unequally with respect to her partner, Mòn. Was the fact that they were two women a way to equally show the impact of the patriarchy?

— They are two women with a ten-year age difference because I wanted to talk about menopause. One is 50 years old and the other is 40. This way I could talk about this aesthetic pressure that you feel much more at 40 than at 20, when on social media you start to see wonderful women and it seems like you have to train yourself to reach 50 in an enviable way. Age has a lot of weight in the relationship, because one still wants to go out and feels like she is missing out on things and the other only wants to stay at home and always dedicate herself to parenting. Then there is a class inequality, because Mòn comes from a good family and has passed her civil service exams, while Júlia has a more precarious situation and does not work.

Each one experiences the breakdown of the relationship in their own way, but as readers we only know the perspective of Júlia, who is the one narrating the story. Why do you opt for a subjective narrator who speaks in the first person?

— Because I wanted to explain a crisis experienced from within, with all its contradictions, vulnerabilities and miseries, and also all the comedy that this entails. It had to be an integral account of Júlia.

It is a comprehensive and very intimate story, because Júlia explains everything. Also her sexual experiences, which are the escape route from this crisis and which make up a good part of the story. What was the challenge when writing them?

— The challenge has been writing them knowing they will be published. If I think about the faces that know me and that everyone will read it, it is very hard for me not to self-censor. But the book was a proposal from my editor, Eugènia Broggi, and she asked me to include sex scenes in it, because in Catalan literature that is not done. Both of us had read Miranda July, who has been a great reference.

Why was it important for the story to include the protagonist's sexuality?

— To explain her crisis. Sex is just another way of defining yourself, and of defining yourself on a very intimate level. Narrating it means letting the reader into places they wouldn't otherwise enter. Not even with people you know or with a friend do you ever reach this degree of intimacy. You think you know everything about that person, but what happens behind closed doors in a moment of intimacy, you do not know. Júlia lets the reader in not only into her body but also into her mind: she explains how she feels and very vulnerable moments. It gives more credibility to the character and makes her more alive.

Julia's crisis is closely linked to the era in which she lives, in the 21st century. How does the contemporary context influence the novel?

— One of Júlia's phrases is: “You are driving through life and there comes a moment when you park”. If she had had Mòn as a partner at 20, she wouldn't have ended up marrying her, but age has a colossal weight here. It is not the same to have been together for six years at 20 as it is at 40. You make decisions based on the age you are and you think that there are things that if you don't do them now, you won't be in time to do them. Youth is extending, but the conditions for accessing housing and stability are more difficult. People have little money. And then they tell you that 40 is the new 30, that 50 is the new 40. I open Instagram and it is full of ladies who look better than me. We think that youth will last until 60 but it is not real, we all know where we will end up.

Gina was very successful, A casa teníem un himne was a finalist for the Òmnium award. Is media attention counterproductive when it comes to writing?

— It is not counterproductive, I prefer that the novels have done well rather than not. It serves as a threshold, I tell myself: “Now you cannot write a worse novel. If it is not to do something better, I will not start it”. But I also trust Eugènia [Broggi] a lot, who tells me that she will never let me make a fool of myself. We did six versions of A casa teníem un himne. She guides me, she orchestrates me. When there is a good editor behind a book, it shows, and she is the best editor in Spain.

After three novels and a non-fiction book [Never is a very ugly word, published by Ara Llibres in 2024], have you managed to dedicate yourself exclusively to literature? 

— I have been lucky enough to be able to dedicate myself to it. A large part of my day-to-day life is dedicated to parenting, and I can only work the hours that the girl is at school, but I do have freelance jobs that allow me to have the schedule that I more or less want. I have practically been able to dedicate myself only to writing or to activities related to writing, such as reading clubs and workshops. I know that if I look for another office job until six in the afternoon I will not write anymore, so I do small freelance jobs from home to be able to write.