santoamaro (128 pages) is a young adult novel by Antonio M. Fraga and winner of the Jules Verne Award in 2020. It is named after a beach in Coruña, Santo Amaro, which in turn is named after a mythical figure who, like St Brendan in Ireland, set off in search of the earthly paradise. This took him and his fellows across the Atlantic Ocean in the direction of the setting sun. The beach in Coruña faces in the same direction. A group of friends has just finished school and, in their last summer together, before they all follow their own paths, they arrange to meet late on a Saturday night to swim in the sea and chat. The beach acts as a kind of stage for their encounters and revelations over a period of twelve weeks.

The first time they meet, it is Saturday 15 June. Each chapter begins with a series of WhatsApp messages. A group of friends arranges to meet on Santo Amaro Beach, which will form the stage of this novel. The curtain rises, the lights go on. Three of the boys – Brais, Fer, and Abel – are already swimming in the sea at night. They are soon joined by four others. We learn about certain relationships: Abel and Iria are an item, as it seems are Marta and Begoña (who is from Bilbao). So are David and Angie (who is from Bogotá, both cities begin with “b”). Begoña and Angie are a little outside the group since they do not know the others so well. They have just finished school and, before leaving for different destinations at the end of the summer, they arrange to meet on a Saturday night to swim in the sea and talk about their things. There is the usual banter between friends – Abel’s buttocks are so hairy the others call him Chewbacca; Fer takes the mickey out of their maths teacher by imitating her voice; Alfonso is having trouble not being sick because of how much he has been drinking. David and Angie have a little argument – Angie would have preferred for them to be alone.

The following Saturday, only Fer and David are left in the sea, after Abel and Iria leave the beach. They lie on the sand and kiss and touch each other. Fer is gay; David insists he doesn’t like men. Fer jokes that David doesn’t want to disappoint people by coming out as gay. He reminisces about his own father, who didn’t talk to him for months when Fer revealed his sexual orientation and only rebuilt their relationship when he was dying. It’s not so much that he disapproved of his son’s orientation, rather he was afraid what it would mean for him. Angie is away in Sanxenxo with some friends.

The following Saturday, Alfonso and Pepe arrive late, having joked around with the taxi-driver by asking him who he likes more – Messi or Cristiano. David and Angie are at a birthday party. Celia’s boyfriend, Santiago, arrives in a BMW convertible. It is obvious Celia feels uncomfortable with him and the others do not like him. He tries to chat to the different groups on the beach and offers to take Pepe for a ride in his car. Alfonso takes the mickey out of Pepe, and the two of them end up in a fight. The friends don’t like the way Santiago appears to control Celia’s life, especially as it is rumoured that he is unfaithful to her.

It is July already. The friends play a drinking game where they have to tell the truth or drink from a bottle. Who would you kill if you had the chance? What song makes you cry? What’s the craziest thing you’ve done when drunk? Have you ever sent a revealing photo on social media? How many of the group have you been with? When Celia is asked who from the group she would choose as the father of her children, she says Abel, and when she is asked who from the group she finds most attractive, she again answers Abel. Her cousin, Iria, is furiously jealous by this stage, since Abel is her boyfriend. She leaves the beach with him, and Celia stays behind, feeling upset. It was only meant to be a game.

Brais is due to leave for Barcelona and summons his friends to the beach. Fer has taken ecstasy and can’t manage to pee. He feels excessively hot. He dances with Marta and Iria and starts to perform a striptease. He goes over to Abel and Pepe for a bit and then tries to join David and Alfonso in the sea, but the sea is cold and he cries out to Alfonso for help. He explains that he’s not feeling well and, when David comes over, he gives him a big kiss on the lips. David is really annoyed at this public display of affection and pushes him over on the sand.

The following Saturday, Begoña arrives late at the beach. On the way, she talks to her mother – Begoña’s grandmother has been taken ill and they will need to go and see her. She is listening to trap being sung in Quechua. She comes across Abel and Iria, who are just leaving the beach. She asks after Marta, and they tell her she was with Pepe, who was coming on to her pretty strongly. Begoña is really annoyed that they have left her alone with this creep.

The following Saturday, again the friends are on the beach. Some of the boys – Abel, Fer, Alfonso, and David – have a play fight on the sand. Pepe goes to sit on one of the stone benches. When Begoña and Marta are left alone, Begoña asks Marta where she has been all week – she hasn’t been answering her messages. Marta relates what happened the previous Saturday. She got very drunk. Pepe helped her to walk. She vomited in a bin. Pepe suggested they go to his house. Marta agreed, thinking it would be a good idea to lie down on a sofa. The next morning, she awoke in bed, naked, and Pepe brought her a cup of tea. There was a used condom on the bedside table. Pepe had penetrated her in the night. Marta thinks it was her fault for being so drunk. Begoña insists that he has raped her – she was unconscious.

The friends go to a concert. Marta only goes when she knows Pepe isn’t going to be there. They then visit the beach. They chat for a while until Pepe arrives in a taxi. Marta suffers a panic attack. Iria and Celia are concerned about her. Celia sends a message to Begoña, who comes immediately. When she sees Pepe, she accuses him of being a rapist. Pepe says it was just a fling. He goes for her and has to be restrained by David and Santiago. Seeing he is under attack, he decides to go on the attack himself by revealing what he knows about Fer and David’s homosexual relationship. This upsets Angie, David’s girlfriend, and she leaves the beach. Fer keeps his left hand buried in the sand, as if it did not exist. He then accuses Pepe of being a wretch, and Iria cannot believe this is happening.

The chapter that follows is only three lines long – the lights go on, but there is no one on the beach.

The following Saturday, 17 August, both Begoña and Marta leave the friends’ WhatsApp group. Pepe expresses his relief. On the beach, Iria blames Begoña for causing a scandal, the fact Marta got into the guy’s bed means it wasn’t rape. David is almost grateful that the news of his gay relationship has got out, it’s a weight off his shoulders. Alfonso admits that he was the one who gave Fer ecstasy. David is really annoyed and rips his T-shirt. Abel has to separate them. Alfonso believes Marta was raped and they have done nothing to defend her. When Alfonso and David leave, Iria wonders whether it wasn’t rape after all.

The following Saturday, David and Fer meet alone on the beach. David brings Fer one of his favourite sandwiches. He hasn’t been able to talk to Angie to sort things out, even if it is to bring their relationship to an end. Fer realizes what he needs is to say goodbye. The same with him. He advises David to grow a moustache – he thinks it would look cool on him. They kiss one last time, and David says this time he is not going to hold him back.

On the last Saturday in August, there is a new group which has Begoña and Marta in it, David, Fer, Brais (who is already in Barcelona), and Celia. They arrange one last meeting on the beach. Celia confesses that she has just broken up with Santiago. Marta and Begoña are pleased for her. Marta then informs Celia that she is going to report Pepe for what he did. This is thanks to Alfonso, who on the night in question received some messages and photos from Pepe on WhatsApp, in which Marta is asleep, fully dressed, and Pepe is seen pulling off her clothes. Alfonso tells him to leave her alone, but Pepe just laughs at him. They think this will be enough to mount a case. Brais appears unexpectedly, he has arrived from Barcelona, and promises they will give Marta their full support.

In a short epilogue, it is September, and the sea is already beginning to invade the stage.

This is an expertly written narrative that raises the important question of sexual abuse. The novel is structured partly as a play – the beach is the stage, the curtain rises, the lights go on. But it is mostly dialogue between the characters. Antonio M. Fraga won the prestigious Jules Verne Award for this novel, which was also included in the White Ravens Catalogue for 2021. The book shares traits with Ledicia Costas’s similarly poignant narrative Heart of Jupiter (available in English).

Synopsis © Jonathan Dunne