"A Sangrada Família", the most recent novel by writer Sandro William Junqueira, was released on Saturday, July 10, in Monte da Lameira, near Alferce, in the Monchique mountains, just before the special marathon show began there. «To end in beauty (or maybe not)», which closes the first part of “Noites do Medronho”.
The new work is, in essence, an adaptation to a novel of the history of the Capote and Monteiro families, «equidistant in land and wealth, enemies in medronho», in a kind of Romeo and Juliet in the fashion of the Serra de Monchique. In the 195 pages of the book, the reader will meet (or rediscover) Ezequiel, Teodoro, Manuel and Filomena, the four characters in this family saga, full of hatred and violence.
Those who followed the shows of «Lavrar o Mar» of the «Medronho» cycle, which began in 2017 and are ending now, will recall in these pages the speeches of those characters, masterfully interpreted, between the walls of the alchemical distillates of Alferce and in the nooks and crannies do Monte da Lameira, by actors António Fonseca, Estêvão Antunes, Pedro Frias and Rita Rodrigues.
In the novel, we talk about arbutus, but we also talk about fire, family, love, hate. «Here evil is fermented and love is distilled. There is raw nature, brutal toil, carnivorous children, packs, old men who smell bad, underwear that smells of fruit and words that pass from mouth to mouth, in this or another place, in fiction or in life, with these or other names».
It is the land where men drink arbutus not to cry. As Manuel says, “in this mountain, men don't cry: they drink arbutus. Crying makes a lot of noise. If we drink arbutus, at least suffering grows silently in our belly. Without arbutus, men start to cry out. Spilling the neck. Because the perfect arbutus is one that reaches the tear point».
It is the mountain where age is told by fires, as Manuel also says. It is still he who unburdens himself: «these trees have already gone through hell many times. And then resurrect. There in the back. Can you see? Black swallowed by the simple effort of the herb (…) Black and black and black and then everything turns green. Life always finds a way».
At the launch of Sandro William Junqueira's book, which brings together in a novel this little bourgeois saga that was a spectacle for four years, Afonso Cruz, the author of the texts of the other part of the saga, that of women, was launched. in Marmelete, over the same four years, the challenge for him to also put into a novel what he wrote.
By the way, tomorrow, the 16th, and also on the 17th, 23rd and 24th of July, the show «Mulheres da Serra» will be presented in the open air in Marmelete, with texts by Afonso Cruz taken to the scene during the previous three years, another text, unpublished, putting an end to the story. It will be five hours of intense theater, lived by the light of oil lamps. And, through the streets of the village, it will be possible to meet or re-encounter actresses Leonor Cabral, Inês Rosado, Sofia Moura and Marta Gorgulho, the so-called women of the mountains.
However, even if the reader has been interested, know that tickets for this highland drama have long been sold out. If you want to meet these four women from the mountains or find out how their story ends, you can only hope that Afonso Cruz will accept the challenge to turn his saga into a book.
«A Sangrada Família» by Sandro William Junqueira, was released by the publisher Caminho and costs 12,5 euros. The book only arrives in bookstores on the 21st of July.
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