Safe Return Doubtful

translated from the Spanish by Mara Faye Lethem

Set in the working-class neighbourhood of San Blas in Madrid during the 1980s and 1990s this debut novel from Portero wonderfully captures the tribulations and complexity of adolescence of a trans teenager. The protagonist is unnamed, and though she is quite sure of herself, is unable to express it.

Though it begins like a fictional memoir, a typical coming of age story; the protagonist’s childhood and early realisation that her gender is not how the world sees her to her first poignant experience of love, as the novel proceeds it becomes much more its own thing.

Written with humour, the girl explores Madrid’s downtown party scene with mixed results, but remains in the closet, with tentative forays into the trans life. In doing so she encounters several lonely trans women who become role models. The care they give one another radiates off the page, even, and especially, when the narrative gets grim.

Portero’s writing is painful and honest, a celebration of young trans lives, though not avoiding the violence that is never far away.

Here’s a clip..

I absorbed the energy I could sense when women gathered together without men. I would dream about it; it gave me butterflies and a peace of mind I didn’t find anywhere else. The time I spent with the men in my family left me cold inside and in constant tension. Boys didn’t just grow up to be men; they were initiated into masculinity, and pity those who failed, even among the finest men. When I was in the company of the women in my family or my building, or the girls at my school, time slowed down as if it were bathed in hot water.

My GoodReads score 4 / 5