The Low Voices draws on a patchwork of memories from Rivas’s early life under Franco. There’s his beloved elder sister, María, who dies young; his mother, the verbivore; his father, a construction worker with vertigo; and a supporting cast of local priests, chatty hairdressers, wolf hunters and monstrous carnival effigies.
The book is full of wonderful personal stories, set against a background of the ravages of the Spanish Civil War. A brilliant coming-of-age novel from one of Spain’s greatest storytellers, The Low Voices is a humorous and philosophical take on memory, belonging, and the nature of storytelling itself.
