‘Crescer à sombra,’ published this month by Suma de Letras, marks the novel debut of the Portuguese composer, producer, and lyricist who previously ventured into children’s literature and a book of dreams.
The author’s desire to write a novel dates back to her teenage years when she wrote short stories. However, as her career in music progressed, this impulse was limited to writing song lyrics, which she describes as “shorter stories, told more succinctly,” she explained in an interview with Lusa news agency.
Nonetheless, the dream of writing a novel persisted. She enrolled in a postgraduate course in fiction writing, which equipped her with the necessary tools to realize this dream, particularly after being challenged to do so by a professor.
The novel centers around Marta, a nine-year-old girl who serves as a sort of alter ego for the writer. Marta despises school but enjoys a free upbringing in the countryside, marked by her family’s presence, especially her grandparents, and by difficult relationships with her sister, peers, and the bodily changes of puberty.
‘Crescer à sombra’ is divided into 34 chapters, each focusing on a different episode of Marta’s life. Although there’s an invisible thread connecting all the stories, they operate almost independently, like small tales.
The author admitted that when she started writing, she had “drafts of many episodes,” consisting of stories she experienced or witnessed around her.
“There are episodes that mark us, stories, people that influence us, and memory, at least in my case, and I believe for many people, what we remember of our childhood ends up being in episodes. So, when I started writing, it suddenly made sense to convey that feeling as well. It’s not a story with a plot that goes from start to finish to reach a big conclusion, but in the end, growing up is a bit like that; it’s made up of numerous episodes that say particular things to us and mark us in some way.”
However, for Rita Redshoes, the book is more about reliving childhood through the construction of a nine-year-old seeing the world, with “all the perplexity it can bring.”
“This character [Marta] is a bit too mature for her age and extremely sensitive, so she ends up being very attentive to the people around her and their stories. She’s not just a child who seeks to play and eat sweets. She’s a child who questions herself a lot and is perplexed about what life is, dealing with loss and death.”
Despite the book being an autofiction, Rita Redshoes acknowledged that most stories are real but “spiced up” in some parts.
“I think I had an eventful childhood, for better or worse, with many interesting adventures and characters around me who inspired me a lot and made me look at life with curiosity,” she justified.
The biggest challenge she faced was “how to make this story, these episodes, and this character consistent enough to form the size of a novel.”
“I had always written shorter pieces, so extending the narrative in a way that wasn’t just filling space but telling more and adding something—that was perhaps initially my biggest challenge,” she confessed.
But at a certain point, the characters became so real to her that they helped her overcome this difficulty, she added.
Discussing the choice of the title ‘Crescer à sombra,’ Rita Redshoes illustrated a “combination” between Marta’s personality, with her darker traits, and her growth process linked to nature.
“Marta is a child with all the positive aspects of being a child, which are many. But she is a child who, quite early for her age, is tormented by more adult, existential issues. And then there’s also, obviously, this analogy to the countryside, of her growing up in the countryside, so the shadow of rest, of warmth.”
Looking ahead, she expressed a desire to write more, as the “pleasure of writing a novel” was also “a very significant process of self-discovery.”
“I feel Marta still has more to tell me, and perhaps others. So, I don’t know if it will be in Marta’s voice or not, but I feel a need to tell a bit more of her life, maybe when she’s a bit older.”
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