The twenty-first century ‘memory boom’ in Spain has resulted in a plethora of narratives in which the Civil War and the early years of Franco’s dictatorship feature prominently. Studies of these works have addressed representations of memory and trauma, recognizing how the authors reanimate the past and narrate stories of conflict and loss to a readership distanced from the historical events. This essay explores four texts, identifying the strategies that have shaped their circulation in e current affective economy. Analysis pays particular attention to text, but also explores the image as formative in the reading experience