the book I bought in Porto. this book was really good, thought provoking, and told an important story. I liked how it switched from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person and also how the story was a biography and a history book at the same time. it got slow at times but I enjoyed how it talked about Lisbon and Madrid and Spain and that part made me happy. I didn’t like the end because it switched to MLKs perspective after talking in JER perspective the whole time. It also tried to comment on social justice and racism in America but the author is Spanish so it didn’t quite work. 

In Like a Fading Shadow Antionio Muñoz Molina puts himself in the mind of Martin Luther King's killer, James Earl Ray. He interweaves the story of of Ray's time in Lisbon with memories of his own stay in the city in the 80s when he was writing Winter in Lisbon. 

The atmosphere Molina creates is immersive. When I read, I felt I had put on a pair of noise canceling headphones and removed myself from the world - a bit like Molina's description of movie theatres vs. tvs "One goes into a movie theater to cease to exist. It is because of that, not the size or quality of the image, that something crucial is lost when a film is experienced on a television set, in the domestic light of one's home, in the calcareous shell of one's identity. "

I was struck by this section about a sound technician who recalled a time accompanying jazz musicians to Florence years ago. The time was formless and he ended up having a panic attack. Molina writes, "There was no trace of temporary amnesia the next morning. He told me he was relieved but also disappointed. Once again, the day and the month and the year and the hour and his name and his job and his past - all occupied precise locations, like elements in the periodic table, within the compartments of time. He decided it was as time to return to Granada; he had already spent plenty of money and could not continue neglecting his family. Now many months later, he missed the winter in Florence, that winter without dates when he had lived in another country. 'And now back to this,' he said involuntarily throwing his hands in the air" This section brought to mind the many lockdowns of covid - times without dates, identities without precise locations - there is something terrifying and freeing about that.

I found this to be a very quiet book - actions are described, the characters do things, but it is wrapped in the thick rumination of Molina, Ray, and King. These are thoughts of insecure, paranoid, or self-pitying men. They can be difficult to read at times, for example when Molina remembers how badly he treated his wife (now ex) in the 1980s. She had just had their second child, but he bristled at his responsibilities to her and his child and went to Lisbon without a thought. I can't say I enjoyed my time in the heads of these men, but I didn't want to put the book down.