Kris, kris, kris... If you scratch the title, Ana Malagón selects the formulas extracted from the daily interviews: Lasai, nothing happens (2014), Stop with us (2017) and I don't know what you're talking about (2021). They say one thing and they say another. Because reality has layers and hides wounds, gaps and difficulties for those who don't want or can't look.
Kris, kris, kris... Scratching the image of the skin comes to the head The hole. They both remind us that we are alone and that we have to move forward. In these narratives, the Greek narrative voice with nails the first layers of the family, relationships between partners, the labor world and education. Malagón, immersed in the fourth decade of life, has as raw material in fifteen stories the distribution, precariousness, loneliness and losses of this time. So I know what Ana is talking about: the blows of life, the grief and the need to rise again. But humor gives us, acid, just around the corner, accompanying us.
We follow the soundtrack of the book Kris, kris, kris... The playlist starts with the song Agur Jesusen (Ana comes to my head) and ends with There is a light that never goes out (The Smith). In his three books, music influences both form and content, until he becomes another character.
Kris, kris, kris... The structure is shown below. It started with the microstories in the first collection, with long stories, and the texts have gradually spread, until they reach an extension of about five pages in the last work. However, consistency and intensity are the characteristics of Malagón's texts; I have found here and there remarkable paragraphs, since in five lines the author begins to sew a set of characters, environments and stings: “Then we realized that the show is over, that our aunt is in the hole and we are in a
well.” Kris, kris, kris... I particularly liked the stories that reflect on the affective links (Axola, but to the extent; the nearby family), that dare to the mother-daughter relationship (Night shift; Pain), and that combine precariousness and absurdity (Emergency Service; Cloister).
Kris, kris, kris... A book for those who want to take the varnish off daily with their fingernails and check what's behind it.