Safe Return Doubtful

translated from the Spanish by Julia Sanches

This short and enjoyable book tells the story of Munir, the author, himself, and three of his friends Alejandro, G and Ernesto, who, as young writers, decide to travel from Madrid and work in France for a summer, thereby gaining experience which they can relate to their literary work.

On arrival an agency fixes them up with work on the grape harvest, but bad weather washes it out, and they end up working in a variety of other jobs, in factories and processing animals.

It’s Hachemi’s first novel, and what he does really well is to create an underlying sense of unease. The four young men are at a stage in their lives, with summer jobs outside their country, where they are looking for a good time. So much so, that they initially ignore incidents around them that in other might sound alarm bells.

It deals with issues of class division, the dangers of following in the steps of literary heroes, and the dreary trudge of day to day life.

My GoodReads score 4 / 5