“Votes against” (SUMA, 2024), the new book by Rayden, is a totally different thing from what, a priori, we could all think. After his previous collections of poems and his first novel, “The rapprochement of the cactus woman and the balloon man”, the man from Alcala launches a book in which he presents us with some of the harsh social realities that we currently find ourselves in, without entering into a conventional love story. Something that is appreciated, taking us out of a more traditional romantic framework, to give us another type of love that is also present in our daily lives.
Under the inspiration of that short independence that the Madrid neighborhood of Cerro Belmonte had in 1990 thanks to its neighborhood struggle, David has given life to characters that we could easily see walking down any street in Madrid. Lea, the great protagonist of this entire story, is a representation of the new, harsh realities that we live in today, those that have to do with the breakdown of established traditional canons and the social precariousness of the youngest people in the country.
On the other hand, we find Inocencio and Estrella. Characters that you hug from the first moment you arrive home and that you don’t want to let go of even when the last page ends. They are the ones that remind us of the great efforts that our previous generations have made for everything we have today and how little we take them into account in our daily lives practically until they leave. Some endearing elderly people who help us reflect on that great social scourge that is ageism.
The arc of these three Madrid-Belmonteños are the ones that carry all the weight of the story. A story in which we find everything, from fights against vulture funds to punches for love, but in which, mainly, two different worlds collide, that of a young woman from Madrid for whom everything has just gone wrong, and that of some elderly people who are thinking more about their legacy than their present. Although there is also a romantic point in Lea’s story, it is given just enough space so that it does not disturb what most enriches this book, which is her relationship with Inocencio and Estrella.
Perhaps the worst thing about the novel is that, when you find yourself in its penultimate chapter, you haven’t realized it. Which makes the ending feel more rushed, despite the fact that all the plots that remain open are closed in the epilogue, surely in a shorter way than we would like, but enough to satisfy doubts.
But the best thing it has “Votes against” It is its authenticity. You may not recognize yourself in all the characters or in many of the conversations, but there is surely one of them that hits an exact point. That point that incites you to get a silly smile and the occasional tear. A new sign that David, after abandoning his musical career in 2024, has much more to give us, although this time it is exclusively within the literary field.