The writer Paul Pen, on February 23 at the DormirDCine hotel in Madrid.Samuel Sánchez
In 2011, the journalist Paul Pen burst onto the literary scene with
El Notice,
a work that took place in Villanueva de la Cañada (Madrid), where he lived at the time.
Graduated in audiovisual communication, he worked for eight years in entertainment magazines and then in non-fiction television scripts.
However, this 44-year-old author born in Madrid left those activities and focused on literature, specifically
thrillers
.
He has published five other books.
The one that has just seen the light and reached bookstores is
On the Side of the Road
(Harper Collins), which takes place in a motel on a secondary road in the province of Alicante.
His works have been translated into English, German, Italian, Russian, and Turkish and two of them have made the leap to the screen:
El Aviso,
by Daniel Calparsoro, with Belén Rueda and Raúl Arévalo, and
La casa entre los cactus,
by Carlota González-Adrio, with Daniel Grao and Ariadna Gil, as well as a script by Pen himself.
“I am very critical, I think about it a lot.
Like many authors, I tend to have a lot of doubts and delete a lot until I like it,” he admits in a themed hotel dedicated to cinema in Madrid.
Ask.
How has the writer changed from Villanueva de la Cañada until reaching this book?
Answer.
It has changed quite a bit.
When my first novel came out, when I was 31 years old, I thought I was already that writer, with a way of writing and knowing what my characters were going to be like, and for me the most important thing about a novel is this.
Now, six novels later, there has been an evolution and now I do feel that I am in control of my abilities as a writer and what I want to write.
Now I feel a security that I write what I really want to write.
Q.
Why are there always such unexpected endings?
A.
I don't consider whether the ending is unexpected or not.
Rather, the story leads me towards it.
I never start writing a novel until I have the ending.
Until I have an ending that satisfies me and that will give the novel the ending that I consider appropriate, I don't start writing.
Sometimes I'm even surprised by how unexpected it is for readers.
In this case, in On the Side of the Road there is a turn and I knew it was going to be surprising.
Q.
Where is the Plácido hotel restaurant?
A.
It is not anywhere, because it is a mixture of several.
The one that is most similar is in the province of Alicante, which is something that I am not saying but that the reader deduces thanks to clues such as the Alitrans transport company.
And someone has told me that they have recognized it because of how the road is described, the hostess club and the fact that the coast is close by.
The writer Paul Pen, during the interview.Samuel Sánchez
Q.
The protagonist has many traits of Paul Pen.
A.
It was not my intention for him to be my
alter ego
, but in the end, since he is writing the same story as me, many of the dilemmas he raises in his novel about dealing with another's tragedy and how the events are treated also arise for me. me.
Lucas goes deeper into the reality of the people who are affected by a crime like this.
Q.
Do you read news of events?
Are you inspired by reality?
A. No, I don't read so many events when they are happening, but I do watch
true crime
documentaries
, when they already tell you the whole story and you can already know what happened and how the thing ended, where they already give you an analysis of who it was. the author and the motivations and his background.
That is, unless it is one of those events that hook you from the beginning.
Q.
How long does it take to write a novel like this last one?
A.
I dedicate a year to it, since I started writing.
Of effort, a lot because I try to put in a lot and concentrate.
I want all my characters to be very believable and for them to all mean something in the story and have an important emotional background.
Above all, they must be characters with depth and not mere tools to generate like a puzzle that ends up being solved.
They must have depth.
Q.
Are you disciplined when it comes to writing?
A.
Yes, quite a bit.
I am privileged that I can dedicate myself only to writing.
I have considered that it is my job and I have my schedule.
Of course, there are days when it doesn't come out, when you can't write because your head is not on the point and you don't like the stories that come out.
Q.
Do you have any writer or work that is your reference?
A.
There is a novel that is mentioned in
On the Side of the Road
, which for me is an absolute reference, because it is one of my favorite works, which is
In Cold Blood,
by Truman Capote.
When I read it for the first time, it seemed incredible to me the way you get into that town and how you get to know all its people, beyond the crime itself.
She is honored here and Lucas mentions her on several occasions.
Q.
Is there already a project for what you are going to do in the future?
A.
Yes. In fact, I finished the novel a long time ago and, after the editorial process, a period passes.
Right now I have other characters and another story in my head that I'm looking forward to writing.
I'm always writing a novel.
Paul Pen, at the DormirDCine hotel in Madrid.Samuel Sánchez
Q.
Will it also be a
thriller?
A.
Yes, but an emotional
thriller
.
I like to highlight the human and emotional side.
We will see the new work there.
Q.
Will we see
Side of the Road
in the cinema?
A.
Hopefully.
The truth is that film adaptations have always caught my attention, they have interested me because it is something that makes your stories bigger and reach a larger audience even if they are in different ways.
Now I have two adaptations.
I see a lot of potential in it but it has some setting, like the secondary road hotel, which is not exploited in our cinema as has happened in the United States with the highway motel.
I see more of a four-episode miniseries.
Q.
Why do you think events are so attractive?
A.
It is one of the questions I ask myself.
I think there's something about seeing how terrible the person can be.
For some reason we are anthropologically interested in horror, how far human beings are capable of going and what they are capable of doing to others.
There is something there that hooks us.
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