Derecho Natural by Ignacio Martínez de Pisón (review)

In his latest novel, Derecho Natural, Ignacio Martínez de Pisón once again demonstrates his vast talent for engaging the reader by focusing on the psychology of dysfunctional familial relationships. This time the background setting is Spain’s transition from a dictatorship to a democracy seen through the eyes of an adolescent. The author’s intent is to enlighten his audience about a period that not many people analyze because of its ramifications in Spain’s current politics. It is only in recent years that one can examine Spain’s Transition and address the government of the first president, Adolfo Suárez, and how many declared Franco supporters changed alliances overnight alleging that they had been forced into their elite positions but, at heart, they were, in fact, pro democracy. Even with the enactment of the Law of Historical Memory (2007) which pursues retroactive justice, the 1977 Amnesty Law which effectively pardoned all crimes during the dictatorship exerts more power.

Much like the renowned Spanish television series, Cuéntame cómo pasó, which recounts the life of a Madrid family as narrated by one of its sons, Carlos, as he looks back at his childhood and adolescence during the Transition, Martínez de Pisón’s book employs a similar framework, but set in Barcelona. Both Cuéntame and Derecho Natural utilize famous pop songs from the 1970s and 80’s to highlight Spain’s Transition not only politically, but also with respect to the outside world and contemporary popular culture, including drug addiction, as seen retroactively through the eyes of an adult man. Neither is based on a true story, but rather each depicts how collective historical memory is reflected in the lives of individuals. The novel is narrated by Ángel, through a series of his childhood and adolescent memories that begin in 1967, when he is five years old and his father returns home after an unexplained absence of two years. The reader knows that the relationship between Ángel junior and his father, Ángel senior, is problematic yet filled with admiration at the mythical persona that Ángel senior becomes, Big Demis, whose claim to fame is his ability to perfectly mimic the famous Greek pop star of the 1970s, Demis Roussos.

The prologue that opens the novel is a memory of Ángel junior’s centered on the 1980s as he recalls the transition of his willowy father into the renowned large Demis Roussos. Big Demis received more acclaim as the personification of the Greek pop star than he had as a second-rate actor in Spanish cinema, despite the fact that his performances as Demis were limited to summer tourist spots frequented by Germans and English patrons. When Demis Roussos is kidnapped by Arab terrorists on TWA flight 847 in 1985, at age 39, Ángel senior is utterly distraught, following the news closely, and ecstatic at his release four days later. This international incident serves to boost Big Demis’s career as an imitator of the famous singer and highlights Martínez de Pisón’s talent in establishing the novel’s realistic setting as a backdrop for a challenging familial relationship. The author, in this five-page prologue, underlines the importance of Ángel senior’s narcissistic, yet vibrant personality that will affect Ángel junior, and his mother and later siblings, during his formative years.

The family’s economic conditions are much affected by the vagaries of Ángel senior’s selfishness and narcissism. He often disappears from their lives and returns expecting praise and accolades. It is Ángel’s mother, Luisa, who maintains the family both economically and emotionally, proving her mettle when she far surpasses her husband as a celebrity agent including finding movie extras to participate in local films. Although the novel is more about the presence and absence of the father figure with all of his faults, it is the mother who is the stronger individual, taking care of a daughter who is the product of an extra marital affair of her...