It is one thing to define a writer as versatile and another thing is to know how to mutate, to change the skin of the narrator as necessary always from the very person of Martín casariego. Because this writer from Madrid knows how to compose with the precision required by good youth literature and then break with the elegance and the necessary background of a current narrative or of any popular genre. Ease names more of a virtue than the simplicity with which anything is resolved.
Different awards recognize Casariego's know-how. Because in Casariego we find that imprint of the trade of putting words together as a need to find channels where to fantasize or explore, where to project that passion for life, experiences, adventures and hopes. Being a writer seems "easier" when what you want to tell is conveyed with that sense of authenticity of the message and precision in the form.
Love is one of the author's star themes, treated with that balance between true romanticism, that of the nineteenth-century tradition and its clash with harsh reality, both conceptually and physically. Something like our André Aciman. Because love is that, the contradiction of not even knowing how to define it. But there is much more to Casariego, and the new paths taken point to a darkening of the plot that sounds fascinating.
Top 3 recommended novels by Martín Casariego
I smoke to forget that you drink
The vices end up being, when they encyst and their remedy is removed, an excuse projected on the others. The great absurdity of this title explains it perfectly. From that idea to many other absurdities, to the alienation of our vital motives moved by drives of love and death, of desires and ambitions ...
End of the eighties. Max Lomas, handsome and sentimental, cultured and disbelieving, lives between Madrid and San Sebastián, where he works as a private bodyguard for a teacher threatened by the terrorist group ETA. While in the capital Max falls in love with Elsa Arroyo as soon as he sees her, in the Basque Country his ambitious and temperamental colleague García begins to consider which side of the line that separates crime from the law should be placed. And what is worse, to also take an interest in Elsa ...
Martín Casariego, one of the leading names in contemporary Spanish prose, begins with this book an original black series brimming with literary, cinematographic and musical references, a fast-paced journey from the sewers of politics and business to the highest spheres of society. With a sober and precise style, dialogues full of irony and an intelligent humor that distinguishes it from other books of its genre, the first novel in the Max Lomas series I smoke to forget that you drink will, from the first chapter, make the delights of all fans of the genre.
The game goes on without me
A youth novel in the broadest sense of the word. A plot that brings us closer to adolescence, to the physical and psychological transition and that delves into that chaos, that big bang of life in transformation that after the explosion seeks new order.
Ismael remembers the time when, when he was thirteen years old, his parents hired Rai, a boy five years older than him, to give him private lessons. After a first unproductive session, they established a pact: the student would study on his own and the teacher would talk to him about books, movies, music, life ...
He would also tell her about Samuel, a young man who met by letter with his ex-girlfriend, with the threat that if he did not show up, he would commit suicide. With this starting point, Martín Casariego has written an initiation novel, a novel about the passage from adolescence to maturity; on the family and the new forms of relationship between young people; about the intensity of such a decisive stage in life; on the weight of existence and how to relieve it.
A story marked by shadows, doubts and secrets, in which the white whale from which the narrator has been fleeing will end up showing up unexpectedly years later, changing everything and prompting him to rethink what happened.
How the birds love the air
As much as the cynicism, wear and tear and disenchantment persist, love is not a minor matter or a gentle refrain without major significance. Love is the engine. And if other less kind motivations are turned off, they end up taking over.
Fernando leads a lonely existence. Fleeing from his previous life, he has moved to a small apartment in the Lavapiés neighborhood. Lost, he walks the streets with a camera and glasses that belonged to his recently deceased father, looking for him in the faces of the people he portrays.
His wandering will take him to meet Irina, a young Lithuanian recently arrived in Madrid. From then on, without abandoning the ghostly puzzle of a dead man, he will see his existence take a turn as he tries to complete an even more complicated one: that of the mysterious woman he has just met. In the background there is a dark world but Fernando cannot renounce the light that has begun to illuminate his life ...
How Birds Love the Air is a very personal and intense journey to affective memory, as well as an exciting song to artistic creation and the search for true love.
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