A reader sent David Uclés a Civil War bomb (without explosive, just as a gift). Another reader, who has an optician, gave her some prescription glasses. And another—to the parrot—gave him the keys to an empty apartment in Villajoyosa (Alicante), so he could enjoy it whenever he wants: “I went once, but I only lasted one day: I’m not a beach animal,” says the writer.
These are things that happen when you hit a literary ball and generate fandom: the novel The peninsula of empty houses (Siruela), which mixes historical story and magical realism around the Spanish war, has already sold more than 200,000 copies and its trajectory is beginning to resemble another unexpected super-massive best-seller from the same label: Infinity in a reedby Irene Vallejo. In Siruela they are on a roll.
On April 2, 2024, this newspaper published an interview with a certain David Uclés, a young unknown author who was launching a promising 700-page novel on a topic not very common in his age group. He lived with hope and uncertainty: his greatest ambition, his concept of success, was to have a good review in and get to the second edition. Now the David Uclés who appears at the Café del Nuncio in Madrid (a place with a bohemian air that matches the style retro of the writer) is the same – his cap, his beard, his checkered shirt – but he is also different: in the last year and a half he has gone from zero to a hundred, becoming a ubiquitous figure in the literary panorama after 22 editions. You can see the tiredness on his face, especially in his eyes: “Yes, I am very tired,” he says, “but also very content and very happy. And, above all, very grateful.”
Success is, therefore, bittersweet. Uclés is getting to know his honeys, but also his gall, which has led him to the psychiatrist’s office. “When I went to a place full of people who required my attention or who focused on me, I would get dizzy… I would turn off, I would turn off, I would turn off… I would have to go to the bathroom to wet my face and compose myself. It was very unpleasant,” he says. Those blackouts occurred in a bookstore in Mérida, for example, or at the proclamation at the Jaén book fair. The stress prevented him from sleeping, he lost about 12 kilos. Now he is being treated with antidepressants, and some occasional anxiolytics before especially popular events. “I have never drunk, smoked, or taken drugs… So, well, I guess nothing happens with psychiatric treatment,” he says. “And I’m doing well.” All of this is combined with the arrhythmias he suffers: he will have heart surgery in a few weeks: “So I prefer to live everything in the moment.”
To prepare his book, on which he worked for 15 years, chaining rejection after editorial rejection, Uclés traveled 20,000 kilometers across Spain to learn about the geography of the Civil War. Now he estimates to have 50,000 in promotion, with events almost every day, and more than 300 presentations of the book. Don’t you get bored of repeating the same thing? “No, because in every place I visit I talk about the part of the novel that deals with the war in that place,” he explains. For example, on a visit to Asturias, in the Toma 3 bookstore in Gijón, he read the corresponding fragments translated into the Asturian language. They are something like personalized, or localized acts. “I like when people tell me that they have learned things from a time that they were not taught or that they now understand their grandparents’ motives better,” he explains.
To better understand that time, Uclés starts a podcast on Cadena Ser in November, The four woundson the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Franco’s death, in which he asks more than 50 guests how the inertia of the Second Republic, the civil strife, and Francoism affect us, in a world where totalitarian temptations return and the extreme right grows among young men. The first chapter takes place in outer space; the second, in the Hall of Mirrors in Baeza, where Lorca and Machado met; the third, in Gernika. “It is very multifaceted,” he says.
His commitment to historical memory has also brought him some problems, such as fascist threats on social networks. They tell him things like “if I see you on the street you’ll see” or “this new Spain that rises today is going to muffle your voice.” “What bothers me the most is that they refer to my homosexuality, my physical appearance or my origins. Criticize my work if you want, but don’t call me fagot”.
Between threats, treatments and enormous satisfaction, the wheel does not stop. Only in the next thirty days Uclés will visit Albacete (where he leaves after the interview), Barcelona, Cáceres, Seville, Toledo, Marbella, A Coruña, La Rinconada, Almendralejo and Avilés, not counting four events in Madrid. “When I started with the promotion I was so naive that I didn’t know that there was a charge for the events… Me, who gave private classes for 15 euros an hour and who had never had more than 500 euros in the bank…”, he says.
In his adventures he has been named the favorite son of Úbeda, he has been a town crier in Quesada, his town (transcript of Jándula in the novel), dressed in the style of Welcome, Mr. Marshall!has been interviewed on the Buenafuente program, has been featured in a video by President Pedro Sánchez (along with Pedro Duque), or has been able to meet some of his literary idols, such as the Asturian Fulgencio Argüelles or Salman Rushdie. He refused to give the proclamation of Gandía: he had never been there. And it has received the blessing of great names in Spanish culture: Ian Gibson, Joaquín Sabina, Iñaki Gabilondo and Juan Cruz. Perhaps to those generations, Uclés, being what it is, reminds them of their own youth.
The success was not instantaneous. The book came out in the spring, but it wasn’t until close to last Christmas that it began to be called a phenomenon. Uclés attributes this to Sabina’s support at that time, or to the fact that Gabilondo recommended him in a special . At that moment things began to heat up and the copies for Christmas were sold out. They stopped earning good money there, but this year that is not going to happen, the printing presses are already up and running: when the fame of a book reaches this level (as happens with the Planeta prize) it is common for it to become a typical gift item, the most obvious choice for those who are not very involved in the book scene.
There are authors who have a progressive evolution, who grow, who achieve a certain status little by little. And others have a star book that suddenly boosts them and makes them go up a notch: this is the case of Irene Vallejo, Sergio del Molino or David Uclés himself. This work touched by the gods provides them with collaborations in prestigious media, conferences, events, and invitations to distant festivals. And it seems there is no going back. “I remain convinced that this is a bubble, that in a year people will have forgotten about me, there are many stimuli, they will be on to something else,” says the writer.
He plans to continue in this maelstrom until 2027, then cut it short, go to Prague to live for two years, start writing. “That’s the life I really like, going to a country where I don’t know anyone, not even the language, and starting from scratch,” he says. And after The peninsula? “There are writers who are remembered by their name, others by their work: I wouldn’t mind being remembered for this book, even if I published others later,” he says. In fact, he has several projects about to finish, which were conceived while he was waiting to publish his best-seller.
One good thing is that Uclés, in addition to being a person, has a character, and that, even if it is natural, even if it is not forced, or precisely because of that, contributes to its phenomenon. “The strangest thing about me, the most outsider“Maybe it’s because I had never contributed in my life,” he says. Before The peninsula of empty houses He made a living playing the accordion and singing chanson French, it comes from when she spent almost three years in Paris, in Montmartre, singing in bars by Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel and Edith Piaf. The bohemian. But now… he keeps doing it. The difference is that he has money and he no longer puts his cap on: there are many other artists who need that support. Sometimes people realize that the busker is also the famous novelist. “It’s a very nice feeling, when someone smiles at you in a special way while you sing, and you notice that complicity, because they have read your novel.” That is also success.