Hispania

In her latest novel, La carne (2016), Rosa Montero addresses the theme of aging and male prostitution, a subject that was also highlighted in Alicia Giménez Bartlett's prize-winning Los hombres desnudos, published a year earlier. Montero is renowned for her deep psychological analysis of all her characters in her novels, as well as her personal empathy for human and animal rights underscored in her weekly column in the Spanish daily, El País. This is not surprising given her university studies in psychology and journalism. Her previous two best-selling books feature the android detective, Bruna Husky, a character who clearly recalls Philip K. Dick's 1968 science fiction novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (which was made by director Ridley Scott into the 1982 film Blade Runner). It is of note that the main character of La Carne, Soledad, includes Philip K. Dick in her exposition of authors who exemplify the themes of madness and love. The variety of subject matter found in Montero's works clearly emphasizes the immense talent of this Madrid author who aptly examines all the psychological nuances of each character to present mainly female protagonists with which the reader can identify. Much like her other works, La carne underlines the inherent machismo in Spanish society that deeply impacts the lives of women and highlights their struggle to navigate societal norms and retain their own identity.

La carne narrates the relationship between 60-year-old Soledad, a highly cultured and successful curator of art and literary exhibits, and Adam Gelman, a 32-year-old male prostitute who is trying to overcome the trauma of his childhood of abject poverty in an orphanage in Russia. Soledad contracts Adam originally to try to make her ex-lover, Mario, also a younger man, jealous, but is unsuccessful in her quest. Montero artfully describes the amount of physical and psychological preparation which Soledad undertakes in order to try and maintain a youthful appearance at all costs. Although her mind is still rapier sharp, her body requires an infinite amount of creams, dental care, specialized shampoo, lotions, vitamin C, and anti-anxiety medications, to list but a few products, in order to leave the house. Soledad is a woman who fights against the natural process of physical aging; however, most Western developed societies such as Spain do not consider women as sexual beings after child-bearing years, so her actions are completely understandable, and even justified. Not only is Soledad considered too old to be a sexual person by Spanish society, she is also threatened in her job by a much younger colleague who considers her ideas antiquated. Furthermore, Montero criticizes the fact that Soledad is not valued in Spanish society because of her lack of children, an autobiographical wink to the author's own situation. Accompanying the feeling of loneliness and aging (hence the main character's name, Soledad) is the idea of one own's mortality, especially if one doesn't have any descendants. Soledad's legacy is not children, but rather her art exhibitions which garner many accolades for originality. The current exhibition that she is creating focuses on madness and love: themes which mirror her own behavior with regards to her choices of men. Montero uses a third person narrative to relate the plot of the novel while alternating with italicized chapters written in the first person to recount when Soledad tails Adam and notes exactly his daily actions, a prime example of her own union of love and madness. Montero skillfully intertwines the narration of the art exhibit with that of the characters' behavior, highlighting her talent both as an author and a psychologist.

Another fascinating aspect of the novel is Montero's use of metafiction. She includes herself as character, a journalist who interviews Soledad about her exhibit. Soledad, in fact, claims that she is not a fan of Montero the character, although she does grow to appreciate her when Montero loans her a set of rare books so that the fictional curator may illustrate her upcoming...