The Return by Victoria Hislop

The Forncett Reading Group was keen to read the new Victoria Hislop novel, following her very successful debut offering – The Island. This new book is based in Spain at the time of the Spanish Civil War. Most reading group members knew little about this conflict, except that it was won by General Franco’s fascist faction. We looked for enlightenment but were disappointed. Aficionados have told us that the conflict was a complicated one that shouldn’t have been tackled in a 578 page novel – I believe they are right. Hislop obviously delved deeply into the history of the war, but at times it was difficult to know who was on which side and why.

The story starts in modern times with a disillusioned housewife and her friend journeying for a few days to Granada to develop their interest in salsa dancing. A great deal of time was spent going to their classes and dipping their dancing toes into flamenco along the way. Our heroine, Sonia, meets an elderly café owner and as they talk he tells her about his city and a little of its history. She is intrigued by wall posters of a matador and a flamenco dancer and wants to know more. She returns to Granada later and goes to the café again. This time the waiter, amazingly fluent in English, tells her the story of the war and how it affected the people in the wall posters. However, we had reached page 150 before his story began, and the faint hearted who are desperate for the real story may well have given up before then.

Miguel, as we come to know him, tells here the story of the Ramirez family, who owned his café before him. We learn about the parents, Concha and Pablo, who are honest hard working ‘salt of the earth’ people. They have four children – Antonio the eldest is a teacher, Ignacio who becomes a famous matador, Emilio, shy and artistic who plays the Spanish guitar in his room and Mercedes, their only daughter who yearns to be a flamenco dancer. Mercedes takes risks to fulfil her dreams and meets Javier, a brilliant ‘guitarra’ (flamenco guitarist). Mercedes and Javier become well known and travel around performing until they are separated during the early part of the conflict.

All three brothers are affected by the war. They are not always on the same side and sometimes say things about each other that they will come to regret. Mercedes thinks only of Javier and sets out to walk to Malaga, where he lives, to find him. Things are not that simple and Mercedes travels to Almeria and then to Bilbao in her search. Her journey continues, but to say more of that may give the game away and spoil the read for others. Concha and Pablo suffer greatly as their offspring go their different ways, and Pablo spends some years in prison when the fascist authorities discover that the family has been listening to a forbidden radio.

The story of the Ramirez family is related to Sonia who is saddened and amazed to learn of Miguel’s involvement with the family and the real story of the people in the posters.

Our reading group all felt that, although the research was obviously thorough, the story that Hislop threaded through the war was, to say the least, unlikely. Artistic licence is one thing, but the amount of coincidence in this book borders on the absurd. There is almost a feeling that having spent so much time researching, the story was dashed off to meet a publishing deadline and insufficient thought went into the plot. We felt that, although The Island was a deserved best seller, without her husband’s famous name, Victoria Hislop would have been lucky to get the degree of publicity for this novel that has come her way.