Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Out in the Open
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1972
WEBSITE:
CITY: Edinburgh, Scotland
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: Spanish
http://www.euprizeliterature.eu/author/2016/jesus-carrasco * https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/only-survival-matters-an-interview-with-jesus-carrasco-and-margaret-jull-costa/#!
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1972, in Badajoz, Spain.
EDUCATION:Bachelor’s degree.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and novelist. Worked various jobs, including as a grape picker, a washer-up, a physical education teacher, a music manager, an exhibition fitter, a graphic designer, and an advertising copywriter.
AWARDS:Book of the Year Award, Association of Madrid Booksellers; Award for Culture, Art and Literature, Fundación de Estudios Rurales; English PEN award; and the Prix Ulysse for the best first novel, all for Out in the Open; European Union Prize for Literature, 2016, for La tierra que pisamos.
WRITINGS
Also author of children’s books. Out in the Open has been published in more than twenty-one countries.
SIDELIGHTS
Jesús Carrasco, who studied physical education in college, is a novelist who has also written children’s books. Born in Spain, Carrasco has subsequently established his home in Scotland. His debut novel, Intemperie, was published in Spain in 2013 and then in English in 2017 under the title Out in the Open. The novel has won numerous awards, as has Carrasco’s second novel, La tierra que pisamos (“The Earth That We Tread”), which tells the story of a woman who finds her life taken over by an unexpected visitor.
Carrasco’s first novel, Out in the Open, revolves around an unnamed boy living in an unnamed country and a drought-stricken dystopian world. The boy flees his village and his home, ruled over by a harsh father. The novel follows him as he tries to survive in a desert-like expanse, where he eventually finds companionship with an old man and his dog, who are overseeing a herd of goats.
In an interview with Los Angeles Review of Books website contributor Lily Meyer, Carrasco commented on the impetus for the novel, noting: “The initial spark that triggered the writing was something that I observed near me. The different way in which two siblings were treated by their parents, one receiving care and support and the other criticism and some kind of contempt. That made an impression on me and made me think about the family as the first circle of love and protection, the first and most important shelter in a person’s life.” Carrasco went on to tell Meyer that the setting may be hell for the boy but that Carrasco grew up in a similar landscape that “in some ways could appear to be a hell on earth.” In the same article, Meyer stated that the novel “plays with several genres: road novel, dystopian novel, rural novel, picaresque.”
In Out in the Open, the old man has a strong spiritual nature and teaches the boy about spiritual and physical survival. Physical survival in such a harsh environment is paramount, as evidenced early on in the novel when the boy falls asleep, gets severely sunburned, and almost dies. The old man teaches the boy the tricks of surviving in a parched world, but he also has many life lessons for the boy, especially concerning the nature of spirit. In an interview with Chicago Review of Books website contributor Amy Brady, Carrasco remarked that he had grown up in a Catholic family and “always felt fascinated by the symbolism and beauty of the Bible.” He singled out what drew him in: “Literary beauty, I could say. Particularly the Old Testament, which is one of the most powerful texts that you can read. I think some of that fascination, along with my appreciation for classic Greek literature, is in the book.”
Out in the Open begins with the boy’s having caused an unnamed incident at his home, leading him to hide in an olive grove as men hunt for him. Although the specifics of the incident remain unnamed, it becomes clear that the boy feels betrayed by his family. After meeting up, the boy, the old man, and the dog make their way to the mountains, where there is supposedly a plentiful supply of water. Initially, the boy and the man are very reserved toward each other but slowly began to form a strong emotional attachment. To reach the mountains, they must endure not only the physical hardships of the dried-out land but also various local authorities, who turn out to be cruel. It transpires that the boy also is being tracked by an evil bailiff who is looking to garner a reward for capturing the youngster.
A Kirkus Reviews contributor described the novel as “harshly and elegantly told; a quest that feels both old and new.” The boy’s past traumas are provided in various disconnected flashbacks, “blunting the emotional impact,” as noted by a Publishers Weekly contributor, who went on to write that some readers may not like the violence depicted in Out in the Open but noted the novel’s “passages of lovely writing coupled with the jaw-clenching tension and moments of hope.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2017, review of Out in the Open.
Publishers Weekly, May 15, 2017, review of Out in the Open, p. 31.
ONLINE
Chicago Review of Books Online, https://chireviewofbooks.com/ (July 18, 2017), Amy Brady, “A Dry Dystopia Inspired by ’80s Spain,” review of Out in the Open.
European Union Prize for Literature Website, http://www.euprizeliterature.eu/ (February 5, 2018), “Winning Authors,” author profile.
Los Angeles Review of Books Online, https://lareviewofbooks.org/ (July 4, 2017), Lily Meyer, “Only Survival Matters: An Interview with Jesús Carrasco and Margaret Jull Costa.”
Only Survival Matters: An Interview with Jesús Carrasco and Margaret Jull Costa
Lily Meyer interviews Jesús Carrasco
62 0 1
JULY 4, 2017
I WORK IN a bookstore — I know how a recommendation sounds. “You’ll love it. It’s so smart/funny/suspenseful/well written. The ending will break your heart.” That’s not how anybody talks about Jesús Carrasco’s runaway hit, Out in the Open. When I first started to hear about this book, I felt like I was listening to descriptions of some transcendent experience, maybe talking to a friend who’d just returned from a commune or gotten interested in psychedelics. “You have to experience it. It’ll swallow you up. I had no idea where I was when I finished it. I can’t describe it, but you’ll see.”
Out in the Open is a novel about a boy who flees abuse in his drought-stricken hometown. He finds himself living on a scorching-hot plain, traveling with a deeply religious goatherd who teaches him survival skills both physical and spiritual. They are hunted, threatened, victimized over and over, but they have no way to turn back. There is no “back”; there’s just danger, drought, and God.
Contemporary novels rarely engage so plainly with faith and physical suffering. Its characters are observant because to be unobservant, even for a moment, would be fatal. The protagonist, referred to only as “the boy,” falls asleep once without meaning to, and the sunburn he gets during his nap almost kills him. In a another novel, this might somehow be a comment on evil and masculinity and power. In Out in the Open, it’s not a comment on anything — it’s an experience of pain so vivid that my eyes watered as I read.
When I spoke to author Jesús Carrasco and translator Margaret Jull Costa, the question I wasn’t brave enough to ask was this: “How badly did working on this book hurt?” Because reading it hurts. It is blunt in a way that I, as a reader, am deeply unaccustomed to. It made me feel raw and threatened. And yes, I loved it, it is beautifully written, the ending will break your heart; but that’s not the point. This is a novel in which heartbreak doesn’t matter. Only survival does.
¤
LILY MEYER: Jesús, what was the initial spark of this book?
JESÚS CARRASCO: The initial spark that triggered the writing was something that I observed near me. The different way in which two siblings were treated by their parents, one receiving care and support and the other criticism and some kind of contempt. That made an impression on me and made me think about the family as the first circle of love and protection, the first and most important shelter in a person’s life.
Margaret, how was this book first pitched to you? And how would you pitch it, if you had to?
MARGARET JULL COSTA: When the publisher first approached me, she simply said: I think you’ll love this book. If I had to pitch it to someone else, I would say it was written in a prose so physical that you can feel the soil on your skin and smell the goats and the blood and the pee, but that it is also a book of great humanity and one that deals full-on with two seemingly eternal topics: child abuse and the abuse of power in general.
Did translating Out in the Open change your understanding of it?
MARGARET JULL COSTA: My first impression was that this was a writer with an extraordinary sense of the physical, right from the very beginning. A translation is always an incredibly close reading of the text, and so as you translate, you inevitably get closer to the prose, but I don’t think the translation process changed my reading or understanding of the novel except to confirm that first impression of overwhelming physicality.
What is your translation process? And does it change book to book?
MARGARET JULL COSTA: My translation process remains the same for all books. I do a first draft on-screen, then read that through again against the original. I then print out that second draft and read it through again about three times on paper, editing as I go and going back to the original when necessary. Then I put those changes in on-screen, read that draft through again, print it out again and do a couple more readthroughs on paper and again on-screen. Then I give it to my husband (who knows neither Spanish nor Portuguese) to read. And then read it all through again.
Jesús, how involved were you?
JESÚS CARRASCO: I like to be close to the translators when they need me. In the case of the English translation of Out in the Open, the process was very rich due to the extremely accurate and conscientious way in which Margaret Jull Costa works. I remember receiving emails every day for a couple of weeks, with a dozen questions each. She really helped me understand many of the images and ideas that lie in the deepest part of the text. For instance, I remember discussing the second sentence in the book, just four words in the Spanish original, an apparently meaningless verse. But working alongside her, I found out how rooted that sentence was in the book, in the landscape, and in me.
I remember, too, our conversations about all the words that appear in the book related to the different ways in which water can be moved to the fields, the villages, and so on. The Spanish language, since such a huge part of Spain is dry, has generated many of words for this, something that doesn’t happen in the English for obvious reasons. Before working with Margaret, I had never thought about how strongly the culture and the society is mirrored by the language.
Do you think someone outside Spain, or someone who’s not familiar with Spanish culture and society, can fully experience Out in the Open?
JESÚS CARRASCO: I’m positive that they can. The proof is the huge number of languages into which it has been translated. Of course not all of them have gathered the same number of readers. But, for example, the Dutch translation has been widely reprinted and read, despite the many differences between Spanish and Dutch culture. Apart from the place where the story unfolds, the Spanish countryside, the book is focused on human feelings such as hope, pain, loneliness, and violence, which anyone can recognize, no matter where they are from.
Out in the Open plays with several genres: road novel, dystopian novel, rural novel, picaresque. Which of those traditions, if any, is the most relevant to you?
JESÚS CARRASCO: Curiously, none of them. I recognize as my main influence the North American literary tradition. By the time I started to write this novel, I had read a large number of great American authors such as Richard Ford, John Updike, John Cheever, Paul Auster, Carson McCullers, et cetera. Among all of them, Raymond Carver had the greatest influence on me. Especially in terms of point of view. The way that Carver looked at his surroundings was key for me.
Out in the Open takes place during a drought, and is filled with scenes of burning. It’s impossible not to ask: is this hell?
JESÚS CARRASCO: It is hell for the main character in the book, indeed. But for me, that landscape was the place where I grew up, which in some ways could appear to be a hell on earth. When I was a child, I remember the scorching summers, followed by freezing winters. During the summer time, due to the drought, the water supply was usually cut off early in the morning and turned on again late in the evening. That meant that our lives were all absolutely conditioned by the lack of water. That was the framework of my childhood, and something that has been carved in the deepest part of me.
I received a religious education from my parents. My father, particularly, was a devout man, and I remember him in silence, reading the Bible. Apart from that, I perceived in both of them a strong ethical behavior. They always helped us to distinguish the most fair and appropriate path to take. And the source of that moral behavior that helped us to drive our lives was the strong religious beliefs of my parents. So I have an enormous respect for religion itself. The other thing is the role of the church, which in too many cases separates from their own doctrine. That happens in the novel. The boy receives his first moral rules from the goatherd, who is a devout man as well, but the church, in that atmosphere of violence and immorality, doesn’t provide him with protection.
How well do you feel like you know the boy? And now that the book has been out for a few years, what parts of him have remained with you?
JESÚS CARRASCO: I have been getting to know the boy little by little since the novel came out in Spain in 2013. Of course I knew him when the novel was completed, but less than I thought I did. I’ve learned many aspects and nuances of the personality of the boy by receiving the opinions of readers. His interior life was one of the pillars of the story because it was, precisely, inside him where the real battle took place. His moral decisions and ethical choices give meaning and shape to the novel and are what, to my mind, make him recognizable and credible, because all of us have to tackle these kinds of decisions. What I most admire about the boy is his silence, and the beauty that is in it.
Margaret, how close to the boy did you feel while you were translating him?
MARGARET JULL COSTA: I felt very close to the boy and to the goatherd, and still think about both characters. I think anyone with an ounce of empathy can understand the terrible vulnerability of their situation and feel outrage at the abuse to which both are submitted.
What was the most difficult part of this book to translate?
MARGARET JULL COSTA: First, there was the title, which, in Spanish is Intemperie, a word that means “the elements,” as in, “at the mercy of the elements.” But “dejar alguien a la intemperie” means “to leave someone unprotected.” So “intemperie” encapsulates the entire novel in one word. I tried all kinds of alternatives: The Lost Boy, In the Wilderness, The Wilderness Boy, On the Run, The Escape, Exposed, Exposure, Out in the Wild, Lost. My final choice, Out in the Open, at least combines the idea of being out in the elements and of dark secrets being exposed to the public gaze.
Then there was the vocabulary. The book is full of detailed descriptions of everything from milking a goat to saddling a donkey. Jesús was extraordinarily helpful and patient with my questions and often sent me photos or drawings to illustrate what he meant. Having access to the internet was essential too. Just being able to see the object named was a huge help, for example, an “encendedor de mecha” turned out to be something called a rope lighter used by soldiers in the trenches in World War I and still apparently used by people heading off into the wild.
What are you translating now? And what other translations should English-language readers be hoping for or looking out for?
MARGARET JULL COSTA: I’m currently translating (with Robin Patterson) the complete short stories of the wonderful 19th-century Brazilian writer Machado de Assis, and Robin and I would love to do new translations of Machado’s novels. In the past, I’ve translated novels by the Spanish writer Carmen Martín Gaite and I’d like to translate more of her stories, as well as those of the Portuguese writer and poet Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen. And, as a lover of 19th-century writers, I’m keen to translate more by the “Spanish Dickens,” Benito Pérez Galdós. There’s also Julio Cortázar’s astonishing book about Keats. And if you’ll forgive this shameless self-advertisement, English-language readers should look out for Eça de Queirós (in my translations, of course!) — start with The City and the Mountains and work up to The Maias.
JESÚS CARRASCO: There is an interesting new generation of voices in Spain becoming heard. I’d like to recommend the books of Iván Repila. The Boy Who Stole Attila’s Horse, for example, is a beautiful example of a new Spanish voice. Other thriving authors would be Jon Bilbao, Sara Mesa, or Pablo Martín Sánchez. On the other hand, one of the Spanish authors that I’m most excited about is our old master Cervantes who is as modern as the most experimental author in contemporary literature. And maybe funnier.
¤
Lily Meyer is a writer and translator living in Washington, DC. She works at Politics and Prose Bookstore.
Winning Authors
Jesús Carrasco, Spain
About the author:
Jesús Carrasco was born in Badajoz in 1972. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physical Education and has worked, among other things, as a grape-picker, a washer-up, a physical education teacher, a music manager, an exhibition fitter, a graphic designer and an advertising copywriter. He took up writing after moving to Madrid, in 1992. Over the years, he has kept diaries and has written short stories, two books for children and one novel, and has grown as a reader. In 2005, he published an illustrated book for first-time readers, and that very same year, he moved to Seville, where he currently lives.
In 2013, his first novel, Intemperie, made a stunning debut on the literary scene. Carrasco received the Book of the Year Award from the Association of Madrid Booksellers, the Award for Culture, Art and Literature from the Fundación de Estudios Rurales, the English PEN Award and the Prix Ulysse for the best first novel. He was also short-listed for the European Literature Award in the Netherlands, the Prix Médi- terranée Étranger in France and the Dulce Chacón, Quimera, Cálamo and San Clemente awards in Spain.
Publishing house:
Seix Barral
Avenida Diagonal, 662-664
08034 Barcelona
Spain
Tel.: + 34 93 492 89 01
www.planetadelibros.com
Contact: editorial@seix-barral.es
Agent / Rights Director:
Daniel Cladera
dcladera@planeta.es
tel: +34934928008
Translation deals:
Albania: Fan Noli
Bulgaria: Uniscorp
Croatia: Ocean More
Czech Republic: Akropolis
France: Robert Laffont
FYROM: Tri Publishing Centre
Italy: Salani
Norway: Cappelen Damm
Portugal: Marcador
Serbia: Heliks Publishing House
Slovenia: Goga
Sweden: Natur & Kultur
Netherlands: Meulenhoff
Book awarded:
La tierra que pisamos (The Earth We Tread)
Synopsis:
At the beginning of the 20th Century, Spain has been annexed to the largest empire that Europe has ever seen. After pacification, the military elites choose a small town in Extremadura as a prize for the leaders of the occupation. Eva Holman, married to one of these men, leads a peaceful, untroubled existence until she receives an unexpected visit from a man who will start by occupying her property and will end up taking over her life.
La tierra que pisamos (The Earth We Tread) explores our ties to the land and our birthplace, but also to the planet that supports us. These relationships range from the brutal commercialisation of power to the pleasant emotions of a man tending to his crop in the shade of an oak tree.
And between these two extremes, one woman struggles to find true meaning in her life, a revelation that her upbringing has kept at bay.
In the same rich, precise prose as his previous novel Intemperie (Out in the Open), in this book Jesús Carrasco explores humanity’s infinite capacity to withstand hardship, the revelation of empathy when someone ceases to be a stranger in our eyes, and the nature of a love greater than we are. This is a thrilling read, a book that might just change your perspective on the world.
Excerpt:
1.
A noise roused me in the middle of the night. Not Iosif’s snoring: strangely for him, he was asleep at my side in silence, half-sunk in the wool of the mattress. I stayed there prone, my gaze resting on the beech wood of the beams supporting the roof, hands clasping and seeking a solidity that the linen, so delicate, denied me. I stayed still some time, shoulders drawn in and hands closed. I wanted to hear the noise again clearly, to pin it on one of our animals, and having done so, to go calmly back to sleep. But I perceived nothing apart from the air rattling the branches of the big holm oak, and then, as if by sorcery, the old myth of the intruder with eyes torn out by greed, took hold of my entrails and set to devouring them.
It’s August, the panes of the guillotine window are hoisted as high as they go, and a balmy, perfumed breeze sways the lace curtains. They dance so beautifully that these days, when I am sleepless, I lean against the headboard and stay there spellbound, watching them quiver like delicate pennants. I inhale the fragrances the air brings with it, which displace, now and then, the stagnant aromas in the room. They come in waves, like the sea leaving onshore the remnants of a wrecked ship. In spring, the tang of the orange blossoms in bloom invades everything, especially at nightfall. The tree invariably sends a messenger days before. Still cool days when all of a sudden a fugitive thread gives notice that there, in some nook in its shadows, life has been summoned to be born again.
With fists full of fabric and eyes shut, I tried to concentrate on the darkness outside. I imagined stepping out onto the porch that presides over the fragrant stretch of grass surrounding the house, and from there I turned my gaze frontward, to where the grounds cut into the valley. In the distance, the gaslights tremble in the village, which is perched like a tortoise on the slopes rising up to the castle. In my mind, I descend the wooden stairs and take a few steps over the damp grass towards the fence that presides over the garden down below. There I hear nothing, not even the coarse chafing of the already withered corn husks.
I turn back to the house to explore the back of the property. Confused forms grow in the flowerpots affixed to the railing on the porch. From the awning, the bell hangs above them, its rope nearly grazing them. The big holm oak ascends to the left of the building, a round, robust creature, its coppice intruding onto the eaves. On the other side, between the dwelling and the road, the small stable with its barred windows and undulating roof tiles. Not even the mare inside is audible, scratching the slate floor with her shod hooves. Nor Kaiser, our dog, but that was to be expected, because he is, without a doubt, the most indolent animal imaginable. “You’d do better to have a hen watch over the property,” the postman said to me once. “Even that one with the frayed neck would be scarier.” And I may have smiled at this notion, and probably said he was right, to get rid of him sooner.
It seems there is a lynx, or a wolf, that’s been marauding for a few days on the outskirts of the village and has killed, so they say, several geese and a lamb or two. Doctor Sneint said as much in the garrison’s dispensary the last time I went to the castle to fetch Iosif’s medicine. While I slipped the phials in my saddlebag, he got up, and after a cursory glance over the spines of his books, he took down an atlas of Iberian fauna and opened it for me. What caught my attention in the etching was the tufted fur hanging by the sides of its mouth and the pointed aspect of its ears. “Paintbrushes, they’re called,” the doctor noted, passing his finger over that part of the print. “Could be a wolf or a fox, though,” he said. “You’ll have to look for its droppings, preferably beside the road to your house.”
“When you find them, open them up and see if there’s much hair inside.” Right then, both the idea of looking for excrement and of breaking it open struck me as repugnant, but on my way home, I found some and couldn’t resist the temptation to poke around in it with a stick. I did not find doing so disagreeable. It smelled of rabbit, and from the look of it, you might say the animal that left it dined on nothing but hair.
I got up and lit the lamp I keep on the nightstand. Leaning out over the windowsill, I moved it from side to side, looking for signs of the animal, but then I realized the full moon glowed brighter than my lamp, and I snuffed it out.
In any case, I found nothing strange. Perhaps my light scared it away. The animals stayed still and I let the warm air coming up from the valley caress my face. The full moon stained the clouds stranded over the flatland a strange yellow. As I fell back to sleep, looking again at the ceiling, it occurred to me there are no beech woods in this part of the country.
I see him for the first time in late morning, while tending the geraniums. The folds of his jacket are there in front of me, poking between the white slats of the fence posts bordering the garden. Next to me, Iosif rests in his rocker, though to say he is resting is, in a certain way, redundant, since he passes the whole day prostrate: in bed, in the armchair in the living room, and for a long spell, here on the porch. I get him up every morning, dress him, and sit him where he’s supposed to go, depending on the time of year. I take him by the elbow, and with short steps he lets himself be led from place to place like a compliant little dog. Illness has reduced him to the merest expression of what he was. A man who had divisions under his command, who held sway over men’s lives, who laid siege to cities and put enemies and traitors to the knife. I ask myself if his old adversaries, those he subdued until making them subjects of His Majesty, hold onto the old fury they must have felt as they rendered up their arms to this man in whose shadow I have lived and whose shadow is now all that I breathe. His mind works in a disjointed manner, and it is just as likely he’ll spend two weeks in silence – head sagging, unable even to lift himself and relieving himself where he sits – as it is likely that he will return, all of a sudden, to reason. In those moments of indefinite duration, he throws himself so wholly into everyday life that it seems as if he’d never left it. Sometimes, he resurfaces like a finicky patient. If we are in the kitchen and he is watching me cut vegetables, he commands me to do so in big pieces, and explains, for the umpteenth time, that he likes to have a sense of what he’s eating. “I don’t want purées, woman. That stuff’s for children, and I’m not a child.”
On occasion, his mind turns to the past and he addresses me as if I were a fragment of memory; he calls me “Commandant Schultz” or “my flower,” with a martial or a honeyed tone, respectively. The strange thing is that never in our lives, even when we were engaged, did he once call me “my flower.” It could be that down in the crevices in his brain, old longings stir, or the recollection of another woman he must surely have yearned for during his long stays away, in the days when the campaigns came one after the other and it seemed the Empire would end up overrunning the whole globe.
Fortunately, it’s been years since the last visit of the man who made my world’s foundations quake. How he would get mad when little Thomas wouldn’t decline correctly, or when he came back stained from the yard. He’d grab him by the ear, pull, and lift the boy almost off the ground. He’d shove him back and forth, and not just a few times, the boy got a backhand or a rap across the fingers with a wooden ruler. I begged him to leave off with it, said he was only a boy, and then he’d turn to me and drown me in the murk of his gaze; the gaze of one who’s drunk his fill of the boiling blood of men. A gaze the memory of which still makes me shiver, and relics of which linger in the depths of his eyes.
“Goddamned borer beetles,” I say to myself, looking at the perforated stalks. They’re impossible to exterminate, and every year I have to pull up bunches of my plants and burn them behind the house, as that’s the only way to keep the plague from affecting the healthy ones. I grab them by the stems and pull them upside down, tearing them out of the flowerpots. The dark soil falls to the ground, always cool and tightly packed, making spongy clods that I bring up to my nose to intoxicate myself with their scent.
I raise my head in search of the vast horizon of Tierra de Barros, and there is his dark jacket, poking through the white boards, filthily invading our property. Kaiser has gone over and sniffs at him, curious, on the near side of the fence.
Without taking my eyes off the man, I stand upright, step back slowly to the open door, and take down the shotgun we have hanging in the entryway. I have to stand up on tiptoe to get to the bandolier with the shells. If the threat had been violent, if instead of this beggar, it had been a thief trying to break into the house, I wouldn’t have had time to fend him off. But I can’t allow Iosif to have a loaded shotgun within reach. Not again.
My fingers tremble while I slide the shell into the barrel. I close the breech, descend the steps, and walk in his direction. At a certain distance, I pause, press the stock into my shoulder, and hope to find myself faced with nothing more than a disoriented drunk against whom, I pray, a broom would be weapon enough.
“You can’t be here,” I tell him. “This is private property.”
He doesn’t respond or move. He doesn’t turn his head to look at me. From this side of the fence posts, all I see is his dirty, dishevelled scalp.
I wait. Kaiser slips his muzzle between the boards and nudges him, like a gentler version of the ever-less patient toes of my shoes. I come a bit closer, nudge him a few times with the stock of the shotgun, and step back. He stays there without moving, and for an instant, I imagine he is dead. I move sideways to the gate that leads down to the garden. I want to be able to see to the other side without closing the distance. He’s a thin man dressed in the dark jacket I already saw and black pants. He’s leaned against the fence posts, legs straight in front of him, head sagging, hands over his thighs with the palms facing up. Beside him, there’s a suitcase, and on top of it, a brown hat. He doesn’t look like a bum or a drunk, and if he hadn’t sat on the ground and smeared himself with dust, he could have worn those clothes almost anywhere.
“You have to go,” I insist, the gun in my arms, and then he does turn in my direction, but still without getting up. On his jaw is a streak of wispy white hair. His shirt’s gone yellow around the neck, the jacket is too big for him.
“I’m not going to give you money.” Kaiser has already laid down behind him, curled up against the man’s kidney, useless as a pouch of wet gunpowder.
There’s no answer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jesús Carrasco was born in Badajoz, Spain, and now lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. Out in the Open, his debut novel, was a huge bestseller in Spain, published in more than twenty-one countries, and is the winner of many international awards, including the European Union Prize for Literature 2016 and an English PEN award.
Margaret Jull Costa has been translating Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American fiction for more than twenty years, including authors like Javier Marías.
SEE LESS
A Dry Dystopia Inspired by ’80s Spain
BY AMY BRADY
JULY 18, 2017
9781594634369_49637This month brings the first U.S. edition of Out in the Open (originally Intemperie in Spanish), the 2013 debut novel by acclaimed Spanish writer, Jesús Carrasco. It opens on a young boy fleeing his village in a dystopian world ravaged by drought. He meets a religious goatherd, whose valuable—if gruffly delivered—ethics lessons double as insights into how to survive the desert plain they call home. As they seek to outrun a bailiff looking to capture the boy for a handsome reward, they work together to overcome hardship and reassure the other of their humanity in the face of tremendous pain and violence.
The novel won several awards when first published, including the European Union Prize for Literature and an English PEN award, and it’s easy to see why. Beyond its timely themes of environmental catastrophe and forced migration, the book is written in spare, precise prose that lends it an epic feel. It’s no wonder, then, that Carrasco has already earned comparisons to Cormac McCarthy.
I discussed that comparison with Carrasco, as well as his love of the ancient Greeks and another key influence—the searing heat and punishing weather he experienced growing up in 1980s Spain.
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Amy Brady: Out in the Open has won several awards, and critics have been raving. Why do you think this novel resonates so much?
Jesús Carrasco: That’s a really good question but I’m afraid I don’t have a definitive answer. When I write I try to follow my intuition as a sort of compass. Otherwise it is impossible for me to complete a novel. I mean, if I were to try to satisfy what I thought the taste of an ideal reader would be, I would automatically get lost.
Amy Brady: The novel is rife with mythic elements: the setting, the sparse language, the constant tension between good and evil. When writing this book, did you draw on any specific myths that you can share with us?
Jesús Carrasco: I grew up in a catholic family. My father especially was a very devout man. I went to church every Sunday until I was 14 or 15 years old and I always felt fascinated by the symbolism and beauty of the Bible. Literary beauty, I could say. Particularly the Old Testament, which is one of the most powerful texts that you can read. I think some of that fascination, along with my appreciation for classic Greek literature, is in the book.
Amy Brady: The image of the castle is one of my favorites because it embodies so many contradictions: it is both majestic and ruinous, an ominous presence and yet something like a safe haven. Is it based on a real place?
Jesús Carrasco: Yes it is. That castle, or more accurately, the ruins of that castle still stands on the plain that surrounds the village where I grew up, in the central region of Spain. I took that familiar landscape as the place in which to let the story unfold. I can remember vividly when I saw the silhouette of the tower for the first time. I was probably nine or ten years old and I was part of the village’s Red Cross Youth Group, a sort of Scout Group. We went walking towards the abandoned village where the old castle stood to spend the day. I remember, while we approached, wondering if the figure on the top of tower was a man looking at us or not. When we arrived we discovered a sculpture of the Holy Cross of Jesus with its hand up as a sign of blessing. Unfortunately the ruin is now on the verge of falling down.
Amy Brady: As an American whose president just pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement, I found it difficult not to think about climate change when reading your novel. Was your landscape inspired by climate change, or perhaps a fear of where climate change might lead us?
Jesús Carrasco: What you read in the novel regarding the harsh climate is actually a true description of the kind of weather which we experienced when I was a child. The lack of water was something that really left a mark on me. I am talking about the ’80s in Spain, when we started to listen to news about the ozone layer, though I think it would be rather risky to relate the dryness that I depict with what we know today as “climate change” or “global warming.” That harshness was enhanced by the poor water distribution system that we had in that time. Anyway, we could take the story in the book as a sort of warning of what is coming or what is already the current conditions experienced by millions of people. Regarding the USA’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, I truly consider it, modestly, as terrible news for the world and, of course, for your country.
Amy Brady: Much of the book reads like a lesson in ethics. Beyond its literary value, do you also hope it’s instructive to readers?
Jesús Carrasco: I always avoid the idea of being instructive. I prefer to serve the raw events to the readers and leave them to come to their own conclusions. I have tried to explore the possibilities, portrayed many times in literature before, of putting together two people, one at the beginning of his life and the other at the end. The combination between the curiosity of someone who is facing life’s challenges for first time and the experience of a person who has lived for a long time, always produces a kind of chemical reaction. And that is what I think happens in the book. The reader can observe that reaction and its final result, in this case, love.
Amy Brady: Out in the Open has earned you comparisons to Cormac McCarthy. Is he an influence? Who else influenced your work?
Jesús Carrasco: Yes, he is. He is one of my favorite American writers. My first attempts to write fiction, when I was twenty-something, were deeply influenced by the reading of Raymond Carver. And following that first scent I discovered the short stories of John Cheever and John Updike. I could mention many other great American authors such as Paul Auster, Richard Ford of Carson McCullers. Aside from American authors, I really like Georges Perec, Garcia Marquez, Natalia Ginzburg and, of course, Cervantes.
Amy Brady: What’s next for you?
Jesús Carrasco: I am in the process of writing my third novel which I would like to finish, hopefully, at the end of next year. In between times, I am writing short stories and, from time to time, some articles.
FICTION
Out in the Open by Jesús Carrasco
Riverhead
Published July 4, 2017
Jesús Carrasco was born in Badajoz, Spain. Out in the Open is his first novel and has been published in more than twenty-one countries. That book won the author multiple awards, including the European Union Prize for Literature and an English PEN award.
Out in the Open
Publishers Weekly.
264.20 (May 15, 2017): p31.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Out in the Open
Jesus Carrasco, trans, from the Spanish by
Margaret Jull Costa. Riverhead, $26 (240p)
ISBN 978-1-59463-436-9
Carrasco's debut novel offers a vague, terrifying, and violent tale told in sparse, taut prose reminiscent of
Cormac McCarthy. An unnamed boy is on the run from his harsh father and a sadistic bailiff. He flees into a
vast, drought-riddled expanse in his unnamed country with a vague plan to simply get as far from home as
possible. After he bumps into an old man with a small herd of goats and an overly friendly dog, the two
become travelling companions, heading north to the mountains, where water is supposedly more prevalent.
They endure sunstroke, dehydration, and the shocking cruelty of local authorities while slowly growing
fond of each other despite their stoic reservations. Details are hazy, and although there are hints of a
collapsed civilization barely hanging on after catastrophic climate change, the lack of specificity leaves
little to focus on but brutality and survival. The boy's traumatic history appears as rapid, disconnected
flashes, blunting the emotional impact. The violence will make some readers balk, but passages of lovely
writing coupled with the jaw-clenching tension and moments of hope make this a welcome introduction a
new voice. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Out in the Open." Publishers Weekly, 15 May 2017, p. 31. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A492435592/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=71fdf994.
Accessed 27 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A492435592
1/27/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1517089599391 2/2
Carrasco, Jesus: OUT IN THE OPEN
Kirkus Reviews.
(May 1, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Carrasco, Jesus OUT IN THE OPEN Riverhead (Adult Fiction) $26.00 7, 4 ISBN: 978-1-59463-436-9
A stark debut novel details a young boy's flight from danger across a desiccated, dangerous land.Carrasco's
unnamed protagonist begins his journey cowering in an olive grove while men shout his name. "He had
caused an incident" at home, necessitating his escape. He is left entirely alone, and "the black flower of his
family's betrayal still gnawed at his stomach." Details of this incident are mysterious to the reader, but the
boy sets out in haste across a severe and drought-stricken plain. He doesn't bring adequate provisions for the
arduous trip, and soon hunger overtakes him. A world-weary goatherd he encounters offers food and
protection, eventually becoming the boy's mentor. Spare in dialogue but lush in cinematic description,
Carrasco's novel (as translated by Costa) draws on old archetypes of journey and mentorship, depicting
beauty in the gaunt, nameless landscape as well as the relationship between the man and the boy. "There
was a time when the plain had been an ocean of wheat fields...fragrant green waves waiting for the summer
sun," Carrasco writes. "The same sun that now fermented the clay and ground it down to dust." The boy and
goatherd fight to stay just ahead of danger, but they do so beneath "stars...like jewels encrusted in a
transparent sphere." There is an urgency to the boy's escape; at night he "dreams he's being pursued. The
usual dream. He's running away from someone he never sees, but whose hot breath he can feel on his neck."
The goatherd teaches the boy his ascetic ways, and the boy searches for the confidence to outsmart the men
who rabidly chase him. In this tale about becoming a man, it is clear that confronting one's own demons is
as important as outwitting the danger that lurks in the dark. Harshly and elegantly told; a quest that feels
both old and new.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Carrasco, Jesus: OUT IN THE OPEN." Kirkus Reviews, 1 May 2017. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A491002930/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=5b5abfb1.
Accessed 27 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A491002930