You Shall Not Kill is the latest novel from Spanish author Julia Navarro and it is no cliché to say she pulls out all of the stops with this one. The novel is a wide-ranging epic clocking in at almost one thousand pages set during World War Two and centering on the lives, victories, and losses of a group of Spanish characters. Navarro writes with clear understanding of the forces shaping the life of her homeland following the conclusion of the Spanish Civil War and some of the most compelling passages of the book, for me, come early on depicting how the Nationalist victory decimates the lives of some of the novel’s key principals. She depicts their struggles to stay afloat in uncertain times with realism and more than a little sympathy for the adversities they face.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: https://www.facebook.com/Julia.Navarro.Oficial/
It is all too easy for a novel of this type to succumb to melodrama, but Navarro avoids that for the most part. There are character types that can seem cribbed from 20th century film and popular ;literature like Marvin the handsome but tormented young American poet, Fernando’s abiding affection for Catalina, the latter’s indomitable and plucky spirit. Navarro, however, also imbues these characters with a full range of human attributes elevating them above the level of ciphers and investing them with the multi-dimensional aspects a great novel’s characters demand. The dialogue over the course of the novel’s three “Books” possesses a convincing ring of authenticity though Navarro, at times, falls prey to overloading exchanges with unnecessary tags and exposition.
I would have likely set up how the narrative unfolds in a different way; Navarro moves a little too freely between perspectives and readers can never be quite sure as the story develops when we may find outselves viewing developments through the eyes of a different character. Fernando and Catalina are natural choices for the novel’s protagonists, but You Shall Kill would have ultimately benefitted more if Navarro settled on one central point of view rather than rendering the book’s punch slightly more diffuse pursuing so many disparate threads. Instead of relaxing and allowing the story to “tell itself”, so to say, Navarro is a little heavy handed at points steering our perceptions in definite directions. We endure extended monologues near the conclusion of Book 2 that are offenders in this regard.
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/You-Shall-Kill-Julia-Navarro/dp/164473124X
She handles the multiple settings of the book with aplomb and gives each location its own distinctive shape and atmosphere. Moreover, the physicality of Navarro’s descriptive prose particularly benefits the novel’s action sequences and many of them are fraught with levels of tension we experience from the best thrillers. Some readers will think she took too much on to satisfactorily close this book, but I find the ending to be on point and befitting everything that has come before. Julia Navarro’s You Shall Not Kill has mighty storytelling ambitions but it is evident she has the necessary skill to handle such demands and brings them off with considerable dramatic and thematic flair. It is an impressive and mature work from a great writer.
Jodi Marxbury