Joao Tordo wrote this novel and it has a fond memory of it, also it is a strange book and difficult one to define. Reflects a period of writing less mature, but that help him sets the tone his writing. It's a story about lost people, forgotten crushed by the speed of New York.
Hotel memory is a result of your staying in New York?
Joao Tordo: It came later; I was in New York between 2002 and 2004. It was an interesting passage as a student I was doing a MA in creative writing, a course that I ended up not finishing because it had its constraints and teach in a very American way. I ended up staying in town and because all people have to survive I went to work in bars and restaurants and those experiences, this underworld of New Yorker, of the people who work in the services that I wanted to tell about. When you go to a restaurant in this town, instead of 10 U.S. employees, five are Mexicans; many others are Ecuadorians, Colombians and Portuguese also. Then you have that experience of being in that funny micro world that I think comes out in this book. It's a story about people who live in these worlds, inside the huge city, without which New York does not survive, because if you sent away all these illegal immigrants, the city just stopped. They are working in metro, washing dishes, serving on tables, they are does that work in the services that nobody wants to do, or rather the Americans don't want. And hence the idea of the student.
Then there is no Daniel Silva.
JT: No, I inspired this character in a singer named Carlos Silva, who in the 40's or 50's went to the U.S. and never succeeded. The story was told to me by a friend of the grandson of Alfredo Marceneiro, who told me that he went to sing fado there. I thought it was curious. The man was lost and no one ever heard from him again. Because he vanished, I thought it was a perfect novel character. If you notice there is a student, as I was, because while it is a very Portuguese history is also very New York. The guy that left his country in search of success and fortune and things do not go the way he wished.
It is almost an anti-hero.
JT: All are. No one succeeded. It's a story that has a lot to with it; in another country we lose a bit of what is our identity. I'm John, the other is Peter, and she is Rita, but in New York we are one point, we are in the middle of something huge. The sense of anonymity, of being in a place far greater than we are and where we have no emotional references, we do not have family, friends, we have nothing, something that I meant to convey in the book. Not only the character who narrates, called Barlow, a reference of a tale of Melville, as well as Samuel, the weird Russian and Daniel da Silva. It's like "pulp fiction."
It is interesting that you say that, because although I thought it was a very cinematic story, for me it recalled more Hitchcock, because it starts with a death that has nothing to do with the rest, but the real story is another one, of the singer. That first part seems to be just a subterfuge for what would be the guiding thread of the book.
JT: Yeah, you're right. When I wrote it, I was not sure how to connect the two stories and how I was going to play it, but they ended up being so. Of all my books this is the most unbalanced in that sense, is a novel of which I have fond memories. But I wouldn't write it today because my narrative structure has change. At the time, it was a way to remember my years in New York, though it is fiction, after all not all happened, a very small part is true and therefore are two narratives that are never intersect, where one serves to justify another aspect and that is a very unusual book. I realize that. It is a book that I have many difficulties to talk about, because I have many doubts about it and also was a weird phase.
Wanted defragment somehow the myth of the American dream?
JT: I never had the American dream.
But the rest of the world has. It was always an effective slogan that Americans sold the globe.
JT: Yes, but it was not meant to defragment it. It was more to see why this city has so much charm and secondly, to show that the normal citizen who comes from another country can succeed easily, but also can sink into debt that is the case what happens here metaphorically. It is the frustration of not getting what one wants the sense of loss that is something that is very in that city. She puts this challenge. You know the song Frank Sinatra? It is the City that pulls a lot for you, but if you resist also gives you a lot. In the case of my characters, they cannot resist.
The hotel memory existed?
JT: No, It is purely fictitious. It is inspired by a hotel that existed, I do not know if there is, in the area of Bowery, stood next to a very famous bar, the CGBG. It was an authentic shithole, well-known for being the place that refuge artists and drug addicts of the 60s. The hotel memory is a metaphorical reference. I thought it would be funny to have a character in that hotel where he stays, but he is not anywhere, is fictitious even for his character, from the moment Kim dies it becomes a dream that has nothing to do with reality. So it would make sense that it did not exist.
You said it was a strange book, would not write it again, but would you redo it otherwise?
JT: I think I would not write it again. Nothing, not even if you paid me. That book served that time in particular, that purpose, was about what I wanted to write. I was growing up, it was ten years ago, today I would write it differently and has other concerns and would never dream of writing a book about young New York may be the city would appear in one of my novels, but this one was impossible.
This new anxieties, are they reflected in your new novel?
JT: Yes, this new novel is called "sabbatical year" that was the most I enjoyed writing. It is the most complete, insofar the part of it is a very personal history, although fiction. When I was born I am one of three twins, I have a twin sister that is in good health and had another that was called Hugo that died after six hours of life. At That time the scans were not as developed as it is today and so the doctors did not know there was a third child, only thought they were two and because he died I lost a person who was like me. The story of double's always fascinated me, or the lack of our identity if we have someone like us, because we are not complete. I had someone just like me who died and in a way I am not complete. So I used this premise to tell the stories of two characters, one is the bass player and the other is a pianist living in two different cities of the world one lives in Montreal in Canada and the other lives in Lisbon unaware of the existence of each other, they believe that their respective twin brother died and will meet. It is a book that has something very personal, but I pick this story and delivery for the fiction that I like to do.
Also it is another book with characters related to music.
JT: Actually it was the second time, the singer happened because someone told me that story, but the book has nothing to do with music. This is much more musical. In hotel memory it was an accident that the character was a singer, would have resulted if he were a painter, a writer or other profession related to arts. This sabbatical year was what I wanted, which was about two musicians and thus this is very present.
