SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Three strangers meet on an overnight train from London to Edinburgh and begin to talk. Two American men and a woman, Alicia, who's from Spain and who works as a translator. They trade stories, and then it seems as if they begin to inhabit them. "I Made You Up Inside My Head" is the first novel from Marta Perez-Carbonell, who was born in Spain, now teaches contemporary Spanish literature at Colgate University. Thanks so much for being with us.
MARTA PEREZ-CARBONELL: It's a pleasure being here.
SIMON: Let's get you to tell us about this train compartment. Alicia encounters Terence Milton and Mick Boulder, known as Bo (ph), and they know each other well, don't they?
PEREZ-CARBONELL: They do. They do. The two of them have been acquainted for some time. He's a professor - Terry (ph) is a professor. And Mick was a student - he was a postgraduate student. And the two of them appear in her compartment. One of them is a writer, and he's at the center of a literary scandal. In his latest novel, he seems to have ripped off the life of a young man who has since disappeared, and so they begin talking.
SIMON: The novel is called "Rocco (ph)." Hans Hague (ph) is the young, Swiss actor who has disappeared. What does Alicia find in their story?
PEREZ-CARBONELL: She is intrigued. This is a story that happens as a result of her not having a book. She says I always read on trains, but I forgot my book this time. And it is precisely because I didn't have a book that I started to - eavesdropping on these two men, and she finds a story there. She's intrigued by this idea of what happened with this young man, what happened with Hans.
SIMON: You speak from some experience - don't you - in this regard?
PEREZ-CARBONELL: I do. Because I, too, read on trains, and I have always wondered, what would happen if I were not looking down? What would happen if I looked up? And for a while I did. It was surprising and refreshing how many conversations happened in those train compartments once I did look up.
SIMON: I always read, too. Nobody wants to talk to me, though.
PEREZ-CARBONELL: (Laughter) I remember, for example, reading "One Hundred Years Of Solitude" on a night train, and I was entering Prague as I - in the morning as I...
SIMON: (Laughter).
PEREZ-CARBONELL: ...Was finishing this - right? You know, you can't really beat that. It's the idea that there were two stories really happening at once. That's what always fascinated me about this connection between trains and books. And this is, of course, part of the essence of this novel, that there is a multi-layeredness (ph) of novels within it.
SIMON: And Alicia - she's been on Yemeni island with a - how do I put it this way - unsuccessful boyfriend, no-good boyfriend.
PEREZ-CARBONELL: Yes. Very much so, very unsuccessful. She herself has questions about her own story. Why did she put herself in this position? So she enters into a relationship with a man who is a biologist, and his research centers around some endemic trees that exist in Socotra, in an island off the Yemeni coast. And she, given the chance, sort of follows him to this island in this expedition that doesn't end very well, let's say.
SIMON: There are a lot of islands in the book. Is that all right to notice - Socotra off Yemen, and then Mallorca, Spain?
PEREZ-CARBONELL: I only realized - once they were all in there - that they were an important part of the book. We've all experienced the isolation in islands. It's even part of the etymology of the world. But they're also self-sufficient, and they can sort of do without the help of others. And I think much of what happens in this book has to do with searching for something and trying to connect with others - not always successfully. So it seems fitting that part of the narrative happens in these isolated islands. Even the train, which is not an island, feels somewhat isolated.
SIMON: And I want you to read a section about another island - Manhattan. This is where "Rocco," the novel takes place. You write so beautifully about New York. Can I ask you to read a section of the novel within your novel?
PEREZ-CARBONELL: Of course.
(Reading) Is the problem with New York that every last inch of it has already been chronicled? Have we exhausted all the encounters in parks decked out in golden leaves or swathed in snow, the ice rinks, the steel of the bridges crisscrossing it? New York has spent decades acting as itself - serving as set and protagonist for love affairs, mysteries, dirty deals and thwarted dreams, the money-flooded stock exchange in the '80s, the casual encounters between ex-lovers, the exorbitant rents. Film and literature have squeezed New York of all its dues and maybe left it dry. How many office workers coming out of revolving doors? How many dog walkers about to bump into some languorous beauty? How many seedy scenes down in the bowels at Port Authority?
SIMON: How do the characters begin to sidle into each other's stories? Sidle is the word I decided on. Maybe that's not the right one.
PEREZ-CARBONELL: No. I think it's a good word. Terry and Bo have an interesting way of being in each other's lives, albeit unclear. We don't know much of how and why they are with each other.
SIMON: I kept trying to figure out some of the worst possibilities, but maybe that's what you wanted. I don't know.
PEREZ-CARBONELL: I did. I wanted to imply that it could be a number of things, you know? Because, otherwise, why would Bo also be so bothered by Terry's fascination with Hans - both bothered and a little bit obsessed with Hans, himself. Everyone seems to be obsessed with Hans. But Alicia was the one character that I spent a lot of time thinking about. How does her story become a part of their story? And it seems to me like even though she comes out of nowhere, as it were, and she hasn't even read "Rocco" at the time of boarding this train, her own story of loss and trying to figure out the extent to which someone was responsible for what happened to her on this island - or was it her fault? That's part of the story that Terry is trying to tell, I think.
SIMON: Among the many lines that just caught me - although all stories come to an end, not one of them does so completely. They are slowly woven together, waiting to form a larger tapestry. Is that a form of everlasting life for us?
PEREZ-CARBONELL: I think that's what literature is. And that's what stories are. Stories are a way of continuing to exist and lingering after we leave. And that's why I believe that stories don't really come to an end. They stay with those who get to stay behind once some of us leave.
SIMON: "I Made You Up Inside My Head" is the first novel from Marta Perez-Carbonell. It was translated by Rosalind Harvey. Thank you so much for being with us.
PEREZ-CARBONELL: Thank you so much for having me, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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