The People from Bilbao Are Born Wherever They Want

The childhood of Maria, daughter of immigrants from Bilbao, was spent backstage at the Parisian theater La Michodière, among actors, costumes, and sets: her father, Julián—a Basque with an explosive temper, a gun collection, and a penchant for alcohol—works there as a caretaker, while her mother, Victoria—once an irresistible Galician woman who meets her husband’s outbursts of rage with submissive silence—works as a cleaner. Growing up, Maria drifts away from her family, studies film directing, falls in love, and builds a career—in short, lives her own life. That is, until she accidentally discovers that this life is built on a lie, and that Victoria and Julián harbor a massive secret. In search of the truth, Maria returns to the Basque Country, plunges into the tangled corruption schemes of the post-Franco era, completely reconsiders her relationship with her parents, and decides to tell her story in an unconventional way for a filmmaker—by writing a novel whose deft cinematic cuts transport the reader from a fishing village in Galicia to the gritty neighborhoods of Bilbao, and from a Jesuit shelter for the poor to the bohemian bars of Paris.