This novel goes up the course of the life of a couple and their disabled son.
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History does not say what types of conjugal crisis crossed Adam and Eve, after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden and the birth of their children. In his ninth novel, the second translated into French, José Maria Merino invests this part of the biblical account passed over in silence to give a contemporary, poignant and tragic version.
After their meeting during a university evening, Daniel and Tere sealed their love during a symbolic “wedding trip”: an excursion in a heavenly place, on the edge of a lagoon. A real epiphany for these two Madrids, who spent ten days there, this expedition through forests and rocky expanses is replayed, years later, in meditation and sadness. This time, Daniel is with Silvio, their only son, suffering from Down’s syndrome. Both were charged by Tere to disperse his ashes where it all started.
Mutual tame
The strength of the novel first deals with his painting, fine and sensitive, of the rapprochement between this father, a renowned scientist, and this adolescent son – “poor nigaud”, “precarious son” – which he rejected from his birth by discovering his handicap. Their march through nature, abundant and accidentally, during which these links will strengthen, in the common learning of mourning, resonates with the epic of the two road protagonists, of Cormac McCarthy (the olive tree, 2008), also marked by the death of the mother.
Rather agreed at the start, the story of this mutual tame, which skillfully alternates with the story of Daniel and Tere, gains in power and suspense as the novel, served by an elegant writing, rocks on the side of the tale For adults. Tale where real and imaginary, voice of the past and the present overlap.
But the River of Souvenirs is even more striking in the meticulous examination of a couple to the test of suspicion and betrayal. In this text, entirely written in the second person, the narrator, tutoring his protagonists as God when he addresses Cain, accuses and questions. What happened to these lovers so that, despite their reciprocal feelings, they find themselves in the position of sworn enemies?
starting misunderstanding
This is all the poison of suspicion that José Maria Merino distills in this text where many things are played out than the expected implosion of a marriage after the arrival of a different child. Is it possible that a simple starting misunderstanding – a study stay in the United States during which Daniel believed that Tere was cheating on it – could have taint the rest of their relationship? The novelist scrutinizes the different facets of the characters, while wondering about their probity. Because if there are many men in Daniel -the “benevolent”, “the austere”, “the intolerant” -, is Tere as smooth as it has always appeared?
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