Missing word for loss
Sergio del Molino begins L'heure violette by highlighting the lack of a specific word to describe the grief of a parent who has lost their child, a theme that shapes the entire book. He reflects on the absence of a term that could fully capture the depth of his sorrow after the death of his son, Pablo, who died from refractory leukemia shortly after his first birthday.Literary tradition of child loss
L'heure violette joins a tradition of works that explore the death of a child, including L'enfant éternel by Philippe Forest and Martin cet été by Bernard Chambaz, as well as the poem Tombeau pour Anatole by Stéphane Mallarmé. These works share the challenge of expressing such profound loss in writing, often resisting categorization into a single genre.Writing without clichés
Del Molino describes his experience without relying on literary clichés, stating that nothing prepared him for the task of writing about his loss. He accepts the role of a "tragic father," writing in an "unbelievable prose" about confinement and love, despite having once aimed only to write jokes. He also reflects on how others have written about similar experiences, and he can only weep for the story he is telling.Reissued with an epilogue
L'heure violette, first published in 2013, was reissued in 2023 with an epilogue. The book is described as an accurate account of the worst experiences, including the impossible pharmakon of chemotherapy with no outcome and the "poetry of blood" of hematopoietic transplants. It recounts the history of temporary remissions, disappointed hopes, and the map of pain and devastation.Narrative detours and escapes
The narrative includes various detours and temporary escapes, such as anecdotes about a woman with cats, dreams and nightmares, reportage on victims of the Atocha station attack, and a collection of photos that recount the previous, opposite side of disaster. These elements serve to document the disaster itself by daring to archive the eternal child, described as "indelible" and "infinite."Soundtrack and literary influences
The work is accompanied by a soundtrack that includes songs by the Spanish rock band Leño, "Saskatoon tonight" by Carolyn Mark & NQ Arbuckle, "Sylvia Plath" by Ryan Adams, and "The Streets of Laredo" by Johnny Cash. These songs serve as a way of protesting and fighting against a story that "seems to have been assembled by a mediocre narrator who stumbles on rhythm and climaxes."Simple writing principles
Del Molino's writing adopts simple principles, including the refusal of metaphor and clichés, as inherited from Susan Sontag, and the extraction of "magical thinking" as Thomas Mann had done before him. He confronts grief with words in hand, avoiding the temptation to sink into the important while focusing on language and structure.Literary references and reflections
The book borrows from The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot and includes an epigraph from Mortal y rosa by Francisco Umbral, which provides a dialogue with the dead child. Del Molino reflects on how he now understands every letter and every blank and every pronoun and every adverb in the book, which he read at eighteen when he was "naked" and "without charm."A book born of hate
Del Molino confesses that this book was born of hate, towards false consolations and those who dispense them. He turns this hate into a paradoxical force of survival. The Latin term "orbitas" is mentioned as a way to describe the condition of someone who has lost their child, with "orbus" meaning he who is deprived of his offspring. This term has not been retained in modern language, leaving the task of writing about such loss open and unbounded.
