El último barco a América (review)

El último barco a América (2011) is Paco López Mengual’s fourth novel and indicates much promise for the relatively unknown author from Murcia who writes in his spare time while running an odds-and-ends store that has been in his family for years. His philosophy is that everyone has a story to tell and this gift for narration is reflected in this novel that recounts the story of Marcial, a young shepherd during the Spanish Civil War, who dreams of immigrating to America to follow his surrogate father. There is already a large corpus of novels concerning the Spanish Civil War following the implementation of the Law of Historical Memory in Spain in 2007 under the political party PSOE, where it was agreed to investigate and make moral reparations for suffering during the war and Franco’s dictatorship. This novel is different in that the war itself and its politics are not the focal points; rather, they enhance the novel’s setting and depictions of the characters. This is not a novel that tries to explain the war, nor does it sermonize about either of the two sides; instead, it is a beautiful coming of age story of its protagonist, which distinguishes it from many other novels. Regardless of one’s politics, this book can be enjoyed by anyone, which sets it apart from other writings concerning the Spanish Civil War. It is accessible to everyone and allows the reader to become fully immersed in Marcial’s world.

The novel is set against the historical backdrop of the Spanish Civil War and demonstrates the hardship of war on all involved. Marcial and his older brother, Negrillo, are two adolescent, orphaned shepherds who barely subsist in the mountains of an unnamed region in northern Spain, eking out a living on the few flocks that they maintain. Both are aware that a civil war has begun because they hear gunfire ring out occasionally, but they generally try to avoid participating or taking sides by taking their sheep higher up in the mountain to graze away from people, specifically the civil guard who are suspicious of the boys harboring Republicans. Marcial seeks comfort in the idea that one day he will save up enough money to journey to America where his mentor and substitute father, who instructed him until age fourteen, has immigrated.

The novel’s originality lies in the fact that Marcial, who has a very active imagination, is able to see ghosts. Only he is able to communicate with the eleven specters of the local town’s Republicans who were summarily executed, their bodies thrown into a mass grave close to where the boys tend to their sheep. Much like Pan’s Labrynth, or El bosque animado, López Mengual skillfully intertwines the fantastic with the realistic, so much so that the reader does not doubt the mix and accepts both worlds without question, a clear demonstration of López Mengual’s talent as a writer. Marcial is converted into the town’s hero because he informs all of the townspeople of his discovery and conveys messages to the families of the deceased Republicans. Most of the relatives were led to believe that their loved ones were led off one night and imprisoned. Marcial becomes enamored of the widow of one of the dead, Elisa, who is also capable of communicating with the ghosts. López Mengual aptly describes the love sickness of a fourteen-year-old boy, using much romantic jargon. This same tone is employed when the author describes the relationship between Elisa and her dead husband, Alberto, who fell madly in love upon meeting each other. Although this romantic tone sometimes borders on sappy, it does not detract from the novel’s content or from the character’s realistic descriptions. The novel is enthralling and maintains the reader’s attention to the very end.

López Mengual wonderfully depicts rural life in Spain during the Civil War. His goal is...