Roser Cabré-Verdiell: "When we reach the middle of life, it is legitimate to doubt everything we have."

Rebeca has just turned 40 and has moved from Barcelona to Ocata with her partner, Flavi, and their two children, Bru and Nit. Despite being in a seemingly idyllic place, trouble soon strikes at the doorstep: a friendship with a family of mysterious neighbors is the first step in a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries, including suicides, witchcraft, a cult, and a necropolis, all experienced in parallel. This is the starting point of Let other people's children die, the second novel by Roser Cabré-Verdiell (Barcelona, ​​​​1982), which arrives three years afterHELP, chosen by the team of critics of theNow We Read as the best narrative work of 2022 and winner of the Finestres Prize, among others. Like its predecessor, it is published by Males Herbes and consolidates the Barcelona-born author's flexible and powerful voice. What's the idea?

— Of three parallel obsessions. The first was noticing the neglected flower boxes of the house across the street. The second was that one day a mother was telling me about her children's nightmares and said, "They see things I can't see." The third was the discovery of the Paris meridian line that runs from Dunkirk to Ocata Beach.

This meridian line is one of the points that activates the transformation of the protagonist, Rebecca.

— It is known as the Green Meridian. Before it was established as such, sacred structures were built around the meridian line: churches, cromlechs, necropolises... There are legends about its telluric power.

The green meridian begins to influence the protagonist's decisions. Just as HELP I was describing a trip to the United States, where the adventure lies in a place we can easily reach, although you give it a dimension that goes far beyond reality.

— I feel very comfortable with psychogeographies: environments speak to us, and they can bring out things from within us. HELP He had the grandiloquence of wanting to travel far away. Here, the journey is minimal, allowing exoticism to enter through other channels.

There are two important dates that mark the book: the Feast of the Lisa, celebrated on August 13, and the Night of the Light, on October 31.

— I made them up. I like to write about rituals and folklore, and the Maresme coast I know is a very un-ritualized one. The Lisa Festival serves as a way for me to introduce the topic of making a wish and beginning to change.

"Let fear go away. Let courage come. Let other people's children die."

— Exact!

And the Night On?

— It harks back to our pagan origins. It falls on October 31st. It coincides with All Souls' Day and Halloween, which is very popular in Ocata. The Noche Encendida (The Night of the Dead) is a reminder of the Hecateyas, festivals dedicated to Hecate, goddess of the Moon, which later evolved into darker cults. The Hecateyas were used to open the gates of the underworld.

It is the night that someone like Rebecca chooses to emerge as a witch.

— Since the story is told from her point of view, we'll never know if she becomes a real witch or a fake one. She's an unreliable narrator: readers witness the transformation from her head. My mother told me, after reading the novel, that it was clear the protagonist was having a psychotic break. And she also told me: poor Flavio.

Flavi is Rebeca's partner and the father of their two children. Shortly after moving to Ocata, they inaugurated the house to celebrate her 40th birthday. Flavi asks him "how he's handling the crisis," and he replies that a crisis "is synonymous with opportunity." Let other people's children die What is a midlife crisis novel?

— Like Rebeca, I turned 40 with many fears, being careful not to overtly disturb the pieces lest the foundations shift. When we reach the middle of life, it's legitimate to doubt everything we have. You find yourself at a crossroads and must decide whether to move forward or stray.

The novel's protagonist is attracted to a bar owner who discovers the days Flavi and her children spend at her in-laws' house.

— One of the underlying themes of Let other people's children die It's infidelity. It's not about infidelity in a relationship—which is also part of it—but rather about throwing away the beliefs that have sustained you until then: a long-term relationship, having started a family... What happens when you question this? What explodes inside you? And outside?

Rebecca's love for her children is unconditional, but it tortures her constantly: she can't stop imagining disasters, calamities, and accidents.

— The problem is what you do with that love you feel for them. Empathy can end up being very harmful to you. When you go all out for your children, you nullify yourself in a way. You sacrifice yourself to make life better for others. I'm quite opposed to the idea that children choose us and come into this world to teach us something. It's us, the parents, who choose.

One of Rebeca's neighbors, Gregori, brings up one of the novel's other central points: "The conflict that abortion poses is similar to that of suicide: deciding about one's own life."

— In an abortion, you're killing a part of yourself. If you didn't do it, that part would end up being born and living a life that, in turn, would affect yours. Suicide involves making the decision to end your own life, and it's a topic I've always felt was a huge taboo, but I've been deeply drawn to it. I've read books. I've talked a lot.

Choosing not to have a child is a decision that torments Rebecca and haunts her for much of the novel.

— She suffers greatly so that her children won't die, and at the same time, she has chosen not to allow one of them to be born. She lives with that ambivalence. And in a place, Ocata, where she delves into that subterranean layer that brings to light the green meridian, the secret meetings, the necropolis...

Does this necropolis exist?

— Yes. It's a Roman necropolis that was discovered during construction work. They built a Caprabo on top of it.

The Caprabo feeds you. However, at shallow depths they have the dead.

— We walk over those graves, searching for what sustains us to continue living. It's just another facet of that constant dialogue between death and life that is everything.