The feminine terror of Virginia Feito, the Spanish author who writes in English

The peculiarity of

seems more newsworthy than literary (a writer from Madrid who writes in English and has been very well received by American readers) but, fortunately, after reading it, it is confirmed that it is much more literary than newsworthy. American critics have come to compare Virginia Feito with a literary icon like Patricia Highsmith, which is not a bad literary reference and hopefully, for Virginia Feito's sake, only literary. On the other hand, I think that in this interior and domestic novel its protagonist would rather marry a character like the one in

(Lumen) by Elizabeth Sanxay, a superb

taken to the cinema by the great Max Ophuls with a stellar cast and which premiered in Spain under the title of

Elizabeth Sanxay Harding was a writer of conventional novels who lived around the world accompanying her husband, a diplomat, and who, left alone and with children, turned to crime novels (that of the Chandlers and company, not now) to survive and he did it successfully. Chandler himself praised her unreservedly. She was the queen of

In any case, the issue of comparisons is always bad for a writer because the aspiration of every self-respecting author is to be unique. Telling someone that he is the Hemingway of Castilla y León is not doing him a favor, but rather the opposite. Virginia Feito has created an excellent character, she has pampered it, she has detailed it, she has built it and it does not look like anyone else than who she has decided to be with a simple writing, without great expressive complications and very efficient.

Mrs. March is a middle-aged woman married to a successful writer, George March, who has just published his latest novel, which is becoming a publishing success. But the comment of the clerk of a business of which she is a regular customer unleashes Mrs. March's latent neurosis: “But it's the first time that she's been inspired by you to create a character, isn't it?” says the clerk. Mrs. March, between offended and stupefied, finally manages to say: "But isn't the protagonist... a prostitute?", and adds: "A prostitute that nobody wants to sleep with?". And the shop assistant finishes off the job: "Well, yes, but that's part of its charm...".

From this moment on, Mrs. March's daily life becomes a nightmare that slowly settles into her emotions. She begins to doubt herself, her husband and, above all, the stability and security of her life. This is the story of an insecurity that eats away step by step, inexorably, everything that until then had been valuable to her. By building the character in her day-to-day life, the author lets fall, like Tom Thumb's breadcrumbs, a series of small events and daily thoughts that, on the one hand, lead the reader towards the end of the story and, on the other, they intensely show a case of obsessive insecurity in a person who has never considered leaving her tiny world, a world that, however, overwhelms her and reduces her to nothing like a chosen sentence,but that she is unable to understand. Mrs. March is a person who does not paint anything in the world of her husband, who is aware of it, that there is nothing that can integrate her into it or, at least, grant her a place in it beyond the mere social relationship. Mrs. and Mr. March are non-existent as a couple and only custom holds them together. It is not difficult to realize the fine thread that unites both lives and how easy it is for reality to cut it. Mrs. March has no other refuge than her imagination, which ends up being an enemy.Mrs. and Mr. March are non-existent as a couple and only custom holds them together. It is not difficult to realize the fine thread that unites both lives and how easy it is for reality to cut it. Mrs. March has no other refuge than her imagination, which ends up being an enemy.Mrs. and Mr. March are non-existent as a couple and only custom holds them together. It is not difficult to realize the fine thread that unites both lives and how easy it is for reality to cut it. Mrs. March has no other refuge than her imagination, which ends up being an enemy.

At the beginning of a literary career, the beginner needs to have a double experience without which writing is like throwing oneself into the void: experience of life and literary experience. The first is that of looking at the world of the aspiring writer, that is: he must have lived long enough to have matured his knowledge of his own life and that of others and have placed his gaze on both; For all these reasons, it is often said that the novel is a mature genre. And the second is to have read a lot, but a lot and, if possible, of true literary quality. It should be made clear that Virginia Feito proves to amply comply with both.

For the rest, if there are some hesitations in the course of the novel, these must be only those typical of a first-time work: some repetitions, some occasional slowness, insistence, a certain delay in part of the exposition when it is intertwined with the knot , which the author resolves with an excellent outcome.

But these hesitations are, in the present case,

and hardly damage history, they are what we could call tolls for a recently started trade;

for all of which I think we are facing a very serious and very, very attractive novel.

Long literary life to Virginia Feito.

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