Abel Tomé
Biography
Abel Tomé is one of the younger generation of Galician writers, but his work has already garnered widespread attention. He graduated in journalism from the University of Santiago de Compostela and is studying for a Master’s in Human Rights. Having won a prize for food journalism with some of his colleagues in 2013 and the poetry prize Revista A Pipa in 2015, his first published novel, The Night of the Crow, was shortlisted for the Illa Nova Award for fiction in 2017. His second novel, The Night of the Wolf, won the same award in 2019. The two books form part of a series, the titles of the chapters being taken from the poetry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson as a way of emphasizing the close relationship of the works with the surrounding nature. It is hoped there will be more books in the same series.
Photograph © Iria Balayo
THE NIGHT OF THE CROW synopsis
The Night of the Crow (204 pages) is Abel Tomé’s first novel and centres on the police inspector Gonçalves, who is called to investigate the murder of the Haggerty family inside their house on Gothard Island, which is ruled by an all-powerful chancellor, Aidan Faol. He will be accompanied in his investigation by two, contrasting young police officers, Pietre and Lúa. The titles of the chapters are taken from Walt Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself”.
THE NIGHT OF THE CROW
THE DISDAIN AND CALMNESS OF MARTYRS
Death bore the form of an apparently happy family. The form of a trouble-making boy. The form of a timid daughter with a taste for mathematics. The form of a four-eyed father with books piled up on the bedside table. The form of a suspiciously attractive woman.
Death bore the form of death.
Couples arguing next to some abandoned thoroughfare, music blaring, car horns, the shouts of a tramp cursing the divinity… The window was open, and the symphony of the city made its way through that place of contact between the room and the outside world. The walls were stained with the colours of the neon sign of the Chinese restaurant opposite. A timeworn sign of intermittent colours projected on to the emptiness of the room. Red, yellow, green, red, yellow, green. I could feel the immensity of Beth all around me, as if the city had been squeezed into those four walls. I hadn’t thought about that for some time, the immensity… For a while I’d been watching the little red lines on the alarm clock, trying to guess when the minute would change. I would count under my breath. One, two, three, four… and so on, up to sixty. I would mentally follow the rhythm of time. I was hardly ever right. Most of the time, I was too slow.
I can’t remember the exact hour, but it was late. I’m sure of that. Five or six in the morning. I know because on the television screen they were trying to sell homemade remedies for hair growth, abdominal exercise machines and penis extenders. Those tacky shopping channels, whose presenter is a long-forgotten actress, tend to appear when the city is waking up.
I have to admit the ringtone on my mobile gave me a start:
Well, shake it up, baby, now (shake it up, baby)
Twist and shout (twist and shout)
Come on, come on, come on…