Since she began writing, Gopegui has conceived of the novel as having the potential to contribute towards processes of social change which, ideally, would ‘transformar la realidad’ (López-Cabrales, 2000: 82). Although she has become increasingly pessimistic regarding the viability of the genre in order to effect such change, she has nevertheless continued to reject the idea of writing for ‘motivos personales’, preferring to frame the creative process as a response to the question ‘¿para quéescribes?’ rather than ‘¿por qué escribes?’ in order to stress that, for her, ‘la respuesta tenía que estar fuera’ (Brooksbank Jones, 1995–96: 134–135). The present enquiry has argued that the author's fundamental endeavour to ‘mostrar que la literatura tiene una función en la sociedad’ by seeking to ‘contar algo que describa el mundo en el que vivimos’ as an initial step towards its transformation, can be conceptualised as a search for solidarity (López-Cabrales, 2000: 82).

This core theme in her work is understood to be actuated, in part, by the collective memory of mass, concerted collaboration to bring about Spain's transition to democracy and an effort to understand the legacy of this process – an effort which has been shaped by influential perceptions of an ensuing erosion of collective interests under the governments of the democratic era. At the same time, the development of the theme of solidarity, and the different modalities of its expression from novel to novel, has been closely related to the progressive politicisation of the author's intentions.