There are writers who come across true stories that seem like fiction and which inspire them to create their novels. A recent and outstanding example is that of Les defenses (2017), where Gabi Martínez skilfully tells the story of the doctor who suffered from the same mental illness he was studying.
The journalist Clàudia Pujol has done something similar in her first novel, No et refiïs dels teus records (Columna), which she presents today at seven in the afternoon at the El Foment center in Girona, accompanied by Cristina Masanés.
A plot that combines social networks, neuromarketing and conspiracies
Pujol’s novel is a denunciation ‘thriller’ that reflects on the power of social networks and the business of neuromarketing. The plot is not based on what a stranger told the author, but it does recreate him as the protagonist.
Samuel Heras is a young man obsessed with conspiracy theories and suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder. One day, he starts sending insults through Instagram to his followers. What seems like a bad joke turns into a tragedy when the recipients of the obituaries die on the dates announced.
This part of the story is reminiscent of Andrei Kurkov’s brilliant novel Muerte con pingüino (2018), where a bored bureaucrat who has adopted a penguin from the zoo and keeps it at home, devotes himself to writing, in advance, personality sketches for a newspaper The problem arises when personalities die.
Pujol’s story takes place in La Garrotxa and not in Russia. And the plot points to the scientific ‘thriller’. If Heras is not to blame, who is behind these deaths? The young man and the Mossos d’Esquadra, separately, will face a disturbing game that will end up having a global dimension and in which they will be mere pawns.
A character who was looking for an author
A stranger, with obsessive compulsive disorder, contacted Clàudia Pujol saying that, after reading some of her books, he had an idea to write a book. And they stayed. “I met a character who was looking for an author to write a story”, explains Pujol. Although the idea did not convince him, his profile did, a person with OCD who precisely “could not write the novel himself because he could not concentrate and hesitated all the time”. For this reason, Pujol was slow to start it, but twelve years later, that character is recreated as the protagonist of No et refiïs dels teis memories.
The action takes place in La Garrotxa (Pujol is Olotina), taking inspiration from real places. There are two main and largely opposite characters, Samuel and Sibel, his partner. “While he is analytical and a little arrogant, she is more sincere”, describes Clàudia Pujol. Despite this, the author clarifies that “it is a very choral work”, where in addition to police officers investigating there is the presence of media forensics expert Narcís Bardalet, whom the author knows well after having written a few books together.
The main character is also a beekeeper, like the person who contacted her, which is why bees play a very important role in the story.
Some topics that concern the author
Other topics that Pujol incorporates into the plot are social networks and neuromarketing, two aspects that worry her and which have been documented in recent years. “It’s not science fiction, it’s already happening,” he says. Pujol is already thinking about a sequel.
Clàudia Pujol i Devesa (Olot, 1976) directs the historical dissemination magazine Sàpiens since 2011. She is the co-author of history books such as La guerra de Cuba (2000) and Dissidents (2007) and author of black-themed books, such as Diari d’un forense (2007) and At the scene of the crime (2010).