The Accordionist’s Son by Bernardo Atxaga

A Basque writer, living in San Francisco, attends the funeral of a childhood friend from the old country, and discovers a short written testimony of his life growing up in the small town of Obaba, which was the scene of some forgotten atrocities during the Spanish civil war. He resolves to expand the brief memoir into a full account; though why he bothers is hard to say as the writerly accretions merely have the effect of turning the narrative into a lethargic crawl: “Nothing changed, especially not inside me. The slow turning led me nowhere”; “For others the past was a fluid that flowed through their spirits unimpeded. My spirit, on the other hand was like dough, like thick paste”.

Review: Accordionist’s Son by Bernardo Atxaga | Books | The Guardian.