Like The Moon’s a Balloon, I’ve not heard the Backlisted episode that discusses Lewis’s travelogue.* And, like Niven’s memoir, I bet their discussion will cover the text’s authenticity. No one will doubt that Lewis spent three years in a remote Spanish fishing village, but they might question how many people he meets are real or composites. Of course, it could all be accurate, but Voice of the Old Sea reads like fiction. Unless Lewis took copious notes—and maybe he did—it’s hard to believe that the lengthy conversations he relays happened as they’re written.

Does this question of fidelity matter? If we treat Voice of the Old Sea as a primary historical source, I suppose yes. But, if we treat it as a mostly accurate account of change, the old ways losing out to gentrification and tourism, then I don’t think it matters. The Catalonian village of Farol, the out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere town where Lewis stayed, so remote the authorities questioned why he would spend time there, has been replaced by seaside resorts and gorgeous views. What Lewis has done, accidentally or otherwise, is chronicle the moment that change occurred.

This all sounds very dry, and based on the cover, I expected a detailed but monotone account of life in Foral. Nup. From the opening page, where Lewis introduces us to the fisherman chatting in the local pub in blank verse, we are sucked into the narrative. Every single person Lewis encounters is larger than life, beginning with his landlady, “Grandmother”, omniscient and influential, whose word on any topic is final; Sa Cordovesa, “possessor of a delicate beauty and charm… [who] conducted multiple affairs with discretion, even dignity behind the cover of making up cheap dresses”; and the “dictatorial” and “taciturn” Carmela, who cooks for Lewis but refuses to let him see how she prepares the food.

There’s also a great deal of fishing. It is not a pastime that I am very interested in. But in Lewis’s hands, it’s gripping, mainly because the village economy relies on the catches during the peak season. Lewis plays an active role during these periods, he’s never a bystander. There are other delights, such as the fisherman’s superstitious suspicion of the Catholic Church, meaning the local priest spends most of his time on a nearby archaeological dig, or that the town is overrun by cats that no one has the heart to kill; or the spats between Farol and the nearby village of Sort (who are dog people). It’s all lively, kind-hearted, and funny. But it’s also tinged with sadness as the arrival of black marketeer, the very pragmatic Jaime Muga, to Foral is the beginning of the end of the old ways.

This is another book I would never have read if not for Backlisted, and it is another book I’m glad I did.

*Spending so much time on Substack has much to do with me being so far behind in podcast listening. Or, at least, that’s what I’m telling myself.