With so many positive comments coming in aboutÌę77, I thought I’d give you a little tease and run a bit of theÌęČÔ±đłæłÙÌęSaccomanno book we’ll be publishing.Ìę

Here’s the description ofÌęThe EmployeeÌęfrom the Carmen Balcells site:

Perfectly normal men and women head to their desks every day in a city laid waste by guerrilla incursions, menaced by hordes of starving people, murderous children and cloned dogs, patrolled by armed helicopters, and plagued with acid rain. Among them is an office worker willing to be humiliated in order to keep his job – until he falls in love and allows himself to dream of someone else.

To what depths is a man willing to go to hold on to a dream?ÌęEl OficinistaÌętells a story that happened yesterday, but still hasn’t happened, and yet is happening now. And we didn’t even notice, too tied up in our jobs, our salaries, our appearances. This novel embraces an anti-utopia, a world of Ballard but also of Dostoyevsky.

And if that isn’t intriguing enough, here’s a blurb that might whet your interest:

“A strange book in the best sense of the word. This is not an ordinary novel, it will surprise many.”ÌęRodrigo FresĂĄn

The EmployeeÌęby Guillermo Saccomanno, translated from the Spanish by Amanda DeMarco and SebastiĂĄn Pont VergĂ©s

. . . so extreme an experience of solitude that one can only call it Russian.
—The Diaries of Franz Kafka

1

At this hour of night, military helicopters circle the city, bats flutter before the large office windows, and rats slip between the desks, all of which are plunged into darkness except for one, his, with the computer on, the only one on at this hour. The employee feels something brush swiftly over his shoes. A faint squeal rushes past along the carpet and slips off into the blackness. He turns his gaze away from the monitor and sees the winged shadows in the night outside. Then he consults his pocket watch, stacks up a few files, places the checks in a folder for the boss to sign tomorrow, and stands to leave. He moves slowly, and not only out of fatigue. Also out of sorrow.

The computer takes a long time to shut down. Finally the screen sighs, goes black. He fastidiously arranges the tools of his work for the coming day: pens, inkwell, stamps, ink pad, eraser, pencil sharpener, and letter opener. The letter opener receives preferential treatment. He polishes it. The letter opener seems harmless. But it can be used as a weapon. He also seems harmless. But looks can be deceiving, he tells himself.

He likes to think that despite his docile nature, under the right circumstances he could be ferocious. If the circumstances arose, he could be different. No one is what they seem to be, he thinks. The opportunity simply had to present itself, then he would demonstrate what he was capable of. This reasoning helped him to endure the boss, his coworkers, and his own family. Neither at home nor in the office did anyone know who he was. And when he considered that he himself didn’t know either, it made him giddy. One of these days, they would see. Just when they least expected it. It frightens him to think that just like his boss, his coworkers, and his family, he has no idea what he is capable of. Sometimes, when he copies the boss’s signature—and he could copy it perfectly—he asks himself who he is. He copies the boss’s signature secretly. The fact that someone can copy someone else doesn’t make them someone else. On more than one occasion, he had asked himself who he was, who he could be, if he could be someone else, but he was frightened to find out. On more than one occasion it had crossed his mind to forge the boss’s signature on a check, cash it, and run. If he hadn’t done it by now, he reflects, it’s because he doesn’t have anyone to share the loot with. A momentous act can only be motivated by passion. In the films, the hero always had a motive: a woman. If you were crazy about a woman, you were unwavering.

He arranges his office supplies, each in its place. Organizes them with mad meticulousness. And, after setting each one down, he glances over his shoulder. At the desk behind his, where his nearest coworker sat. Although this coworker wasn’t his subordinate and was charged with less important tasks than his, nonetheless, someday, when the employee was no longer there, the coworker would certainly sit at his desk.

On more than one occasion, he had caught him in the act of writing in a notebook. When the coworker sensed he was being observed, he swiftly stowed the notebook in a desk drawer with an obsequious smirk. Finally, he confronted him. What was it he was writing, he asked. Terrorized, the coworker answered, a diary, he was keeping a diary, a personal one. He didn’t know what to say. Keeping a diary was for girls, he thought. Maybe the coworker was a homosexual. He didn’t seem like one, but he could be. With others, you never knew. He stammered something about how keeping a diary seemed very interesting. It never would have occurred to him that the life of someone who spent his entire life at a desk could be interesting, he thought. But he didn’t say so. One night like this, alone in the office, he’d rummaged around in the drawers of his coworker’s desk. The notebook wasn’t there. Then it occurred to him that these secret writings must contain something against him. Why shouldn’t he think that the coworker had been assigned to record his movements. Were it so, he told himself, even if he had always considered himself an obliging employee and an ordinary citizen, he now found himself under surveillance. This feeling of being under surveillance persisted for quite some time. Until, after a while, he stopped worrying about it: had the coworker been an agent and he a suspect, he soon would have disappeared. The roles were reversed. No longer under surveillance, he surveilled. When he turned abruptly, the coworker rushed to close the notebook with this smirk of apology, which turned into a game that ultimately bored him. Since then he’d been certain that if he could, the coworker would take advantage of the smallest error on his part, with that same smirk, in order to move up a desk. Around here, you couldn’t even trust your own shadow. And the coworker behind him, he thinks, is his shadow. A menacing shadow, even if it smiled amicably and always proved willing to sort out whatever file he consigned to it.

The employee regards the letter opener. It would be lethal, were he to drive it into his coworker’s jugular. He reproaches himself for having this sort of fantasy. He is aware that it degrades him. It makes him feel contemptible. As contemptible as the rest of them. At heart, he is convinced that he’s better than the others. If an opportunity were to present itself, he could demonstrate that he is above them, and that his superiority lies squarely in never stabbing anyone in the back to get a raise, a promotion. He considers himself better than everyone else precisely because in all of the years he’s spent here, he’s never tried to get ahead by slandering his fellow employees. You might also say, he tells himself, that his behavior suggests a dogged desire to go unnoticed. If during his tenure he had never been the object of disciplinary action and had managed to endure at his desk, he reflects, it was only thanks to his particular way of melding with his surroundings, which guaranteed that no one took any note of him. He sometimes wondered if to convince the others that he was harmless, he would first have to persuade himself of the fact. Once his thoughts had advanced to this phase, they galled him. It was possible he had expended so much effort pretending he wouldn’t harm a fly, that he was now actually incapable of doing so. But, at the same time, he reflects, someone like him, capable of thinking two contradictory ideas at once, was not only superior to the others but also someone to be feared, someone who could commit a courageous act at the moment they least suspected, confronting them with their own cowardice. Watch out, he says. Watch out for me. Because I’m someone else. Just because I don’t show it now doesn’t mean that the others should underestimate me if the opportunity presents itself. And of all of them, the one who should take the most care was of course the coworker.

His desk now in order, he heads toward the coat rack, pulls his raincoat from its hook. He’s embarrassed to wear it. It isn’t merely worn but actually deformed with age. With the cold these past weeks, the temperature dropping day by day, he’s had no alternative but to use it. Each morning before entering the building, he takes it off, folds it, and keeps it folded under his arm with the lining facing out, which he’d paid a Bolivian tailor in his neighborhood to replace last year. In the office, he glances around slyly before hanging the raincoat on a rack far from his desk, in a nook, at the back. Then he slips away. He worries that his haste will make his uneven gait more pronounced. He generally manages to lessen his limp by taking measured strides. But when he abandons his raincoat on the rack, it’s difficult not to run away, so that no one associates it with him. Conversely, alone in the office at this hour of the night, he takes down the raincoat and slips it on calmly. Then he turns off the light and sets out, shrouded in darkness. He can make his way blindly between the desks, such is his knowledge and instinctive memory of the place, its desks, archives, and cabinets; its odd corners.

But a noise stops him in his tracks. It’s not the rats. It’s footsteps.

2

A shadow falls on the frosted glass window of the boss’s office. He watches it slip across the pane, silhouetted by the helicopters’ search lights. No one except him stays this late at the office. No one puts in as much overtime. And he doesn’t do it because he has to. Also because he wants to. He prefers to stay away from home for as long as possible. But tonight his dread makes him regret staying so long. He creeps up on the shadow behind the frosted glass window, letter opener in his damp hand, his entire body gripped by fear.

He pricks his ears. Footfalls from the other side. If these are the steps of a thief, and if he, bumbling but heroic, manages to overpower him, his actions will be rewarded by the boss, perhaps even canceling the debt incurred by the advances he takes on his salary. He clutches the letter opener, which does nothing to soothe his fears. He tiptoes, without betraying his limp, taking care that his well-worn shoes don’t squeak. He crouches to one side of the door.

The steps on the other side pause. The silence lengthens. He’s afraid that his courage will fail him. His entire life has been marked by subjugation, maybe now is his big chance. If he lets it slip through his fingers, he might not get another. And the memory of this night, he knows, would be just another disappointment among countless in his life.

He’ll wait until the intruder exits the office, charge him, catch him by the neck, and disarm him with the letter opener at his throat, for the intruder certainly had a weapon, a firearm. He will seize the firearm and, holding him at gunpoint, call the security guards.

The shadow grows across the floor as the door swings open.

3

He tenses to attack. Then restrains himself. The secretary panics at the sight of him crouching there, about to stab her with the letter opener. Her glasses fall to the ground. He’s speechless. He picks up the young woman’s glasses, a round-rimmed pair, while stammering an explanation and still clutching the letter opener. The young woman trembles. He sets the letter opener on a desk. Helicopter search lights shine through the windows. He sees the glittering of her tears. Wishing to soothe her, he takes her in his arms.

There was nothing magical about how I ended up in Lutz’s hole-in-the-wall. I’ll try to explain bit by bit.

I was bumbling along, rolling downhill. At twenty we believe in passion; we tremble. We allow ourselves the luxury of suffering for love since we have an arsenal of spasms at our disposal. The most trivial, sentimental foolishness thrills us or plunges us into despair. Our emotional repertory seems inexhaustible. But when we least expect it, when we pass fifty, the operatic mechanism of seduction gets corroded, and we stumble around at an age when passion gives way to indolence. Then we appeal to various resources to recover a feeling that has vanished: with each lust-at-first-sight pickup, a second-hand enthusiasm. And yet I can’t do without that giddiness, so I went searching for it at night, when the city became a no-man’s-land. There were few assaults. With a couple of pesos in my pocket, I would go out into the street and walk aimlessly, meandering. I would stroll along Santa Fe in search of quick comfort. A fast fuck and chau. If I had no luck, there were always the public bathrooms at the bus terminals. A major one was located at theÌęde Febrero terminal, near the race track. My age, dark gray suit, glasses, a few gray hairs, black moustache, I felt, made me look respectable. More than once I was stopped by a police or army barricade. There wasn’t a single night when a green Ford Falcon didn’t spot me, marking me. The guys would give me the once-over, and since I didn’t try to dodge their gaze, they continued on their way. I had gotten used to running into patrol cars, Federal police vans, carriers, armored cars. A blackout was the sign of an operation in progress. Sometimes a helicopter flew overhead. Other times, while crossing a street, I saw a display of uniforms half a block away. They would yank a family out of a house, a building, and force them into a truck, hitting them with the butts of their rifles. The city remained deaf to the sirens, the orders, the screams and sobs of the children. There were nights when the shooting and explosions deafened me. Early one morning, passing by an empty lot, I saw some guys pull a group of blindfolded young boys and girls from their vans and shove them against a wall. I heard shutters slamming. I hid. Curled into a ball, I hid. Then, the explosions. Finally, the van’s engine. And silence. In the stillness, I left my hiding place and walked toward the open lot. They were so young.

In spite of the terror, at night I walked and walked like one possessed. It would still be a while before I was diagnosed, early one morning at a hospital emergency room, with obsessive wandering syndrome. I would come to like that diagnosis, those three words: obsessive wandering syndrome. But it would still be a while till I was diagnosed. Now it was April, and I went walking through the nights and the cool early morning till the first signs of daylight. It seemed unlikely, as I said, that a respectable-looking citizen would be loaded into a green Falcon. More likely that a gang of bums would drag me to an open space, a construction site, as they did early one morning around Dock Sur.

The giddiness had just eased up when the cramp attacked my legs.Now I could return to my apartment and collapse. All I needed was a quick nap to be ready for action again, teaching my class. Although I was sleeping less and less, I didn’t feel exhausted. But I was beginning to notice some anxiety and clumsiness in my gestures, and then a lethargy to which I reacted with an unexpectedly rapid heartbeat, small memory lapses, stumbling, all signs I hadn’t noticed before. It was then, when I turned fifty-six, anticipating my approaching decline, that I consulted the inevitable I Ching. The oracle replied: “The concealment of theÌęlight.” The power of darkness controlled everything. Light had been violated. But finally evil, because of its essentially stupid nature, would end up destroying itself. And while this prediction had its share of optimism, it was no great consolation. Like more than one depressive, I looked for solace in Taoist texts. I started going to the Kier Bookstore, as if that establishment were the anteroom to nirvana.

*

Bodhi was twenty-something. He was beyond skinny; he looked emaciated. In his gestures you could see an unaffected fragility, his delicacy. I met Bodhi one March afternoon at the bookstore. He adopted that nickname after Bodhi Dharma, though any queen hearing the name would have thought body. The boy was looking for The Hermetic Circle, the correspondence between Hesse and Jung. A pickup, a fast fuck, I thought, would help me endure my anguish. But the sensual attraction was displaced by a mutual courtesy. He always addressed me with the formal usted. I was moved by the spirituality the kid exuded because, let’s look at it this way, he was slightly over twenty, and I, an old man, fiftyish, considered his mystical arguments childish illusions. Who, in a bout of depression, hasn’t swallowed a bellyful of Orientalism? The esoteric can turn out to be an illusion of exile. Breathing the ether, you could forget what was happening right under your nose.

Any way you want to look at it, Bodhi smiled at me with the sweetness of an altar boy. Nothing is accidental. This meeting wasn’t.

Bodhi opened the book and read to me:

“Nothing happens by chance,” Hesse says. “This is the hermetic circle.”

The kid inspired a feeling in me that, I have to admit, wasn’t physical appetite. In his gullibility there was a kind of purity. And purity isn’t something you can buy at the corner kiosk.

I can see it in your face, Bodhi said to me. You’re damaged.

The conviction with which the boy said it disturbed me. It was the conviction of a pure soul, a saint who has come to reveal a truth. The physical attraction I had felt when I met him turned into the descent of an angel. It’s true that for a moment I thought Bodhi was possessed, one of those many sallow, scrawny types, overfed on Lobsang Rampa, who latched onto an Orientalist dream to escape from reality. In a few minutes, I said to myself, the boy’s gonna go all Hare Krishna on me.

You must be a vegetarian, I said.

I am, he replied.

He didn’t seem to pick up on my sarcasm. And if he caught it, he let it slide. He regarded me with a self-sufficiency that wasn’t devoid of pity. He made me feel ashamed of my condescending tone. Suddenly my desire vanished, and what I felt for the kid was envy of his principles, his confidence in his mystical convictions, as he admonished me.

When someone is damaged, he can’t find peace, he said. He blames his pain on other people’s incomprehension, he locks himself up inside, he weeps over the lack of love. He becomes a tormented soul.

Forgive me, I said. Maybe I misjudged you.

Forgive you for what, he said. You didn’t insult me. No, you’re the one who’s punishing yourself. Maybe you need to touch bottom. As soon as you touch bottom, you’ll search for the light.

I thought you were . . . I said. But I didn’t finish the sentence.

The hermetic circle, GĂłmez, he said. Believe or explode.

And what if I don’t believe.

If you don’t believe it’s because you still haven’t penetrated the darkness. Like the swimmer who jumps off a diving board: he needs to touch bottom in order to rise to the surface. Then the truth will be revealed to him.

We went into a bar on Calle Libertad. I ordered a coffee and gin on the rocks. Bhodi asked for a pitcher of water. And this struck me as a detail that revealed his personality. Captivated, I wondered if the virginal character suggested by each of his minimal gestures might be a symptom of repression and stupidity. A simple exchange of glances in the bookstore had been enough to reveal that the two of us liked one another, but now, as the conversation and the afternoon went on, I started to wonder if the boy was a madman or a genuine saint. With the first swig of gin, I grew bold enough to prod him:

Tell me, kid, have you lived your entire life in a test tube?

Bodhi launched into his story. My father was an anarchist, he said. And my mother was a spiritualist. They never got along. For him, going against management meant not working. He always came back to the house drunk. “House” is just an expression: we lived in a tenement near Barracas. We got by with what my mother earned as a nurse at TornĂș Hospital. We all slept in the same room. The double bed, a crooked dresser, a couple of chairs, a little heater, and my cot in one corner. On winter nights, when my father came home drunk, he pushed my mother out of bed and forced me to lie down next to him. That’s how he initiated me in vice. A few minutes ago you were thinking that maybe I was a virgin. Don’t ask me how, but I knew you were thinking that about me. When a person has had transcendent psychic experiences, he acquires very keen perceptions. I remember the darkness of those nights, the red-hot coals in the heater, my mother’s sobs, and my father’s rough hands all over me. Till one night my mother stood her ground. She was waiting for him with a syringe. As soon as my father walked into the room, she surprised him from behind and stuck the needle into his neck. There must’ve been a really powerful drug in that syringe. My father barely had time to let out a shriek, turn around swearing and walk out to the patio, clutching his throat. He fell like a stone. Then, the ambulance. They took him to the Municipal Hospital. Since all the tenants came out in defense of my mother, she was released from the police station immediately. It was a little after that when she started going to spiritualist meetings. She came back from those meetings uplifted: she wore a grateful smile. I was very small when she took me to Luna Park, to the Basilio Science School meeting. My mother always said that PerĂłn was a divine being. We owed him the possibility of divorce and the acceptance of spiritualism. Thanks to my mother, I was initiated into the Great Wisdom. Excuse me if I’m talking too much. Maybe I’m boring you. All it takes for me to communicate is for someone to show me his sensitive side. Just like I knew what you were thinking about me a few seconds ago, I know that now you’re sincerely moved.

Two possibilities, I thought: Bhodi needed a psychoanalyst or a confessor. I asked him why he was telling me his story, why me:

I learned that if you want someone to open up his heart, first the emissary has to open his own. You need to open up your heart. You need help.

And you, angel boy, are my emissary.

My derision bounced right off him.

I’m not the emissary, he said. You’re the one who’s been chosen by the circle.

You don’t say.

The circle is closing, he said.

Afternoon was winding down. The first shadows. The first lights. We turned onto Avenida Santa Fe. On this side of the city you were somewhere else: there were stylish shops, elegant women, men in smart suits. Even those who were dressed casually looked like they were strolling through the Windsor Castle gardens. Here the kids were not only blonds, but heirs. Me and my resentment, I chided myself. But by recalling Evita I was able to assuage my bitterness. If violence was the midwife of history, I thought, Evita was the bitch who had managed to cut those assholes down to size. Though the snobs had gotten even. “Long live cancer,” they had painted on walls when she developed it in her uterus. I looked at Bodhi. Out of the corner of my eye, I looked at him. What had he done with his pain, I asked myself. The theosophical jackass was walking along, lost in thought. His spirituality was the refrain of a frightened child, singing in the darkness to settle his nerves.

We were walking along the sidewalk of San Nicolás de Bari when two green Falcons stopped a few yards away. The cops got out in a rush, wielding rifles and pistols. A clicking of weapons, shouts. Some of them had long hair and headbands. The one in charge was a massive, dark-haired guy in sunglasses. I thought they were coming after us. But no. They dispersed, blocking the path of two women. Two women, one who looked like the mother and the other, the daughter. Both women ran back toward the church, trying to climb the stairs and enter the sanctuary. They didn’t make it. They were caught before they got there. The cops seemed more interested in the daughter than in the mother.

I remember the girl. Tiny, short hair, a little blue coat. All four of them grabbed her and beat her viciously. They stuck their fingers in her mouth to make her spit out the pill. The mother tried to shake them off, crying for help, till one of the guys hit her on the back of the head with the butt of his Ithaca. The girl was cursing. They grabbed the mother by the arms, threw a hood on her, and shoved her into one of the cars. The girl was dragged down the stairs. Her head started to bleed as it struck the steps. They seized her by the ankles and the hands, and they put a hood on her, too, and shoved her into the other car. No one interfered. Then, the slamming of the Falcons’ doors. The screech of tires.

We walked on without a word. Bodhi’s silence angered me more than my own. In his self-absorption there was a kind of superior attitude. He probably had an airtight explanation for what we had seen. I preferred not to ask him, not to listen to his thoughts. Bhodi was the same age as the girl who had been kidnapped. Maybe his muteness was easier to tolerate than the esoteric arguments he would use to explain what had just occurred.

We were making our way along Charcas, near Callao. I felt like smacking him. I couldn’t take any more of this young snot whose meekness cloaked a know-it-all quality that wore me down. That’s all I need, I thought. For some young kid to give me advice on how to live. That’s what I got for not having enough self-control to stay in my apartment, concentrating on my papers and on a journal where I spilled all my solitary anguish. As if writing could bring relief.

You’re suffering because of the internal chaos we live in, Bhodi said.

And he sighed:

When you can’t take it anymore, consult my Master.

Bhodi handed me a card.

Lutz, he said. He’s my Master, my spiritual guide.

Saying good night, Bodhi extended a cold, bony hand. I took another look at the card and was still looking at it when Bhodi vanished into the darkness. I turned onto Ayacucho. The shadows of the trees added to the nocturnal gloom. That street was a tunnel.

Buy it now from your favorite bookstore, online retailer, or via our .

Here’s the full press release that Anthony put together:

“As his characters grapple with love, allegiance, and daily life under a dictatorship, every action is a form of resistance.”
—Foreword Reviews

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What I wanted to deal with was civilian complicity, because the military dictatorship came about with the complicity of business and labor groups, and political parties—let’s not forget it came just before elections were to be held. There is a lot of documentation in Argentina, a lot of testimony, a lot of biography, a lot of work has been done on the dictatorship, but not on civilian complicity. The support of the middle class and small business has never been sufficiently exposed.

Even if you were snatched up and taken away, the others didn’t change their normal routines: they worked, went through red tape, paid their taxes, fell in love, married, and then hated one another, came and went, talked about the game, reproduced, had kids, educated them, sent them to school, and went on with their lives, their usual lives . . .

To entice you, below you’ll find a excerpt from the first Saccomanno book we published,Ìę.

LikeÌęTrue DetectiveÌęthrough the lenses of William Faulkner and John Dos Passos,ÌęGesell DomeÌęis a mosaic of misery, a page-turner that will keep you enthralled until its shocking conclusion.

This incisive, unflinching exposĂ© of the inequities of contemporary life weaves its way through dozens of sordid storylines and characters, including an elementary school abuse scandal, a dark Nazi past, corrupt politicians, and shady real-estate moguls. An exquisitely crafted novel by Argentina’s foremost noir writer,ÌęGesell DomeÌęreveals the seedy underbelly of a popular resort town tensely awaiting the return of tourist season.

Here’s a small section of the novel, translated from the Spanish by Andrea G. Labinger.

It was barely the end of March. And people could talk about nothing but Melina’s suicide. No matter how much they tried to avoid it, Melina slipped into every conversation. The weather: summery. You could still walk around in shirtsleeves. Nights were just cool enough for a sweater. It was on one of those nights. At middle school: that’s where it happened. And what happened distracted us from Melina for a while.

At night school, I was saying, a kid gutted another kid. The murderer, they claimed, was a scrawny little half-breed who kept to himself, and the other one, the victim, another half-breed, a big guy who used to beat up the whole class, including the other guy, the weakling, always teasing him. Until one night last week the bully threw a wad of paper at his target. Not a peep out of the shy one. At his desk, minding his own business. But then he stands up, walks over to the other one, and stabs him with a kitchen knife. Then he splits. A clumsy oaf looking for a hideout, he sneaks into a little shed in back of his house. And what does his saintly mother do? She hauls his ass over to the police station; she turns him in. The cop took him to Dolores, but they say the kid will go free. Because of how meek he was, they say, they’re going to let him go. Because he acted under emotional pressure. And yet they say the kid wasn’t so meek after all, nor did he come from as normal a family as some people swear. Brawlers, the father and the uncles. I was with them at a few asados. I remember a lamb we were carving up at a stand in La Polaca. A drunk hassled one of the uncles. The uncle’s knife was a flash of light. In the end they let the kid go, someone says. And when he returns to night school, the whole gang grabs him and crushes him. Not one bone left unbroken. He’s in the hospital now. In a body cast. Now it seems like there’s going to be a protest in the Villa to make them lock the kid up again. His father’s going to be at the march, too, he said. With his knife. To skin alive the ones who want the kid put away again. Mano a mano or in a mob, he’ll skin them alive, he promised.

And of course it was Moure, the veterinarian, who offered this opinion: Half-breeds shouldn’t be sent to school. They should be sent to gas chambers. He said it with conviction.

Tuesday morning, sitting at the computer as he downed another mug of instant coffee, Dante, the sixtyish publisher and only reporter for El Vocero, our Friday newspaper, after editing the story about the kid who got knifed in a classroom at middle school, wondered how to write about Melina’s suicide, the topic that had brought him there.

Solid gold, that girl. Her father, el Negro Berto, was a likeable, well-regarded guy, but he also had a strong, even irritable, disposition. He would take off his thick glasses, anticipating a fight that never came to pass. Because every outburst was over almost before it began, and he quickly reverted to his good-natured gauchoÌęself. These outbursts, they said, began when he lost his wife and was left alone with Melina, who was three at the time. Since then, although several females fluttered their wings at him, Berto had no romantic history to speak of. Melina was, as they say, the light of his life. My friend, my companion, my sweetheart, he called her. The light of my life. If Berto killed himself working night and day at the shop, it was because he had sworn to himself that the girl would never lack for anything. Only the best for her, he repeated. And when she finished high school, he vowed, Melina would study law. Melina would have a degree. Melina wouldn’t be some common girl like so many in La Virgencita and El Monte. Melina would be someone. And when she got serious about a boy, he would have to embody all the favorable and proper conditions to share his life with a real young lady. All the conditions. And more.

The kids at middle school. First the girl’s suicide. Then the stabbed little half-breed. Murder, Dante thought, was within the realm of normalcy. Why not? Marginality, violence, et cetera. And that et cetera contained a sort of wretchedness that wasn’t his problem, though it was what inspired the crime section of El Vocero, he had to admit, which was running a bit short today. But Melina’s suicide was something else. He couldn’t put aside the secret. The secret, an open secret, was known throughout middle school and also in the neighborhood. The suspense was growing. Not only for Dante. We all wondered how El Negro Berto would react when he found out about his daughter’s romance.

Sharpshooting champion,ÌęEl Vocero reports. A distinguished and veryÌęlarge Villa crowd attended the traditional Sharpshooting Pistol Competition,Ìęsponsored and promoted by the Chamber of Commerce and the BeerÌęLovers’ Association. It should be noted that the crowd on this occasion wasÌęlarger than in previous years, which proves that interest in this contestÌęis growing, especially on the part of young people. More than 80 marksmenÌęfrom Buenos Aires, Madariaga, Mar del Plata, Necochea, and BahĂ­aÌęBlanca were in attendance. There were seven very fluid events, consistingÌęof 9, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 31 shots apiece. The winner in the UnmodifiedÌęGun Division was our dear Esteban Armada, 18. The championÌęreceived congratulations from our mayor, Alberto Cachito CalderĂłn, whoÌępresented him with the trophy. A big shot, Esteban.

The end of March, the air of March, the light of March. I’m at an asadoÌęwith the Melit.ns in the park of the Transatlantic Building. Juan MelitĂłn is a street cleaner contracted by the city lumberyard. Mariela, his wife, is the custodian of the building. The couple is there with their son, Kevin, along with guests, three of Kevin’s young friends. Like Kevin, they’re all fifteen. And there’s no way around it: it’s hard to move the conversation away from a pregnant girl’s suicide.

One of the kids makes an attempt: I’m glam, says the one in red pants. Not me, says the one with a pierced lower lip. I’m punk. But we all wear skinny jeans. Stovepipe pants—in my day we called them stovepipes. One of the kids, the long-nosed one, is an orphan, Melitón the Gaucho tells me. The pimply one, the one who looks like a wanker, has parents who are separated. We’re reggae, says the kid. And he points to Kevin: I’m gonna be Rasta, Kevin promises. With dreads and everything, he smiles.

And I’ll beat the living shit out of you, his father replies, adding soda to his red wine. He takes a swallow, returns to the grill, and brings chinchulines.ÌęAs he serves them, the conversation turns to the murder at night school. In addition to Melina’s death, the kids have been hit hard by the knifing at night school. They hadn’t yet gotten over Melina’s tragedy when they were struck by another. Struck, I say. No, grazed. Maybe because at their age these dramas seem like a novel; they get swept up in them. And who doesn’t like to feel he’s part of a novel, right?

A kid knifed another kid, they said. The murderer was shy. He looked like a wuss. And the other guy, a bully, on his case all the time. Till the nerd stuck a knife in him. The zit-covered guy reflects: You gotta watch out for the quiet ones. The one with the big nose says: That dude could really draw. An artist. Cities blown up by death. Vampires, he drew. Skeletons.

And you? MelitĂłn asked. You wanna be like that?

What do you want me to be—a street cleaner like you?

We don’t have the money to pay for a school like Nuestra Señora for you, Mariela tells him. So you’ll have to behave yourself and do okay in middle school.

To be someone, Melitón tells him. Anyone can be a bully with a knife. In workman’s sandals, that’s how I want to see you.

For people from around here, this is the Villa, and when they say Villa, they trace this place back to its origins, the Central European pioneers. Italians, Galicians, those who came from other parts, like the majority, because the majority here came from other parts, not just from Austria, as if Austria was a big deal. Everyone, I’m saying, including the natives, calls this town the Villa. And when they say “Villa,” they feel like a superior, chosen race. The kids, on the other hand, those who were born here, almost all share the single goal of getting the hell out. The stoner snobs who want to keep on kicking back take their surfboards to Costa Rica. The blue-collar kids who are looking to earn some cash go to Spain to become dishwashers or to the States to scrub toilets. Wherever it is, they’ll be better off. Anywhere but the Villa. This damn town, they call it. They’ve got plenty of reasons. Wait till winter and you’ll understand, Dante predicts.

Let’s kick things off with a quick overview of who Saccomanno is. In faux-interview form.

How did you come to find out about and publish Saccomanno?

We first found out about Saccomanno when Andrea Labinger was awarded a for her translation of Gesell Dome. The sample that won her the grant was pretty . . . striking, right from the get go:

Tonight, hypocrite reader, my double, as you’re about to start reading this book, novel, stories, chronicles, or whatever you prefer to call these bits of prose, pieces of nothing, on this freezing night, with the sea so close and so alien, right here in this Villa, May, June, July, August, September, what difference does it make, in any of the off-season months, here, in his chalet in Pinar del Norte, a center-left surveyor is fucking his kid, someone, a mechanic, in a tin-roofed house in La Virgencita, is beating his girlfriend, someone,Ìęa drunken laborer in a vacant lot, tries to break another drunken laborer’s neck during a game of truco, someone at the Terminal, a night watchman in canvas espadrilles, after the last bus has gone, drinks mate, the steak of the poor, someone, an AIDS victim, hangs himself in a shanty in the south, someone, a foreman at the cement plant, is burying his girlfriend’s body at a construction site, someone, a young officer, is applying an electric cattle prod to a juvie thug at the police station, someone, a loser wrapped in cardboard, dies of cold in the doorway of a building near the docks [. . .]

And it goes on and on like that for probably a couple-dozen more awful crimes.

Holy shit.

Yeah, holy shit is right.

Is that when you made an offer?

Well, it doesn’t exactly work like that . . . We were intrigued, but given the length of this book (616 pages!), we needed a bit more information about what it was like as a whole. Thankfully, Andrea had a proposal that provided a really solid overview of this mosaic novel about Villa Gesell, a resort town with a Nazi past. Gesell DomeÌętakes place in the off-season, when the town’s remaining residents struggle to make it through to the next tourist season. How do they pass the time? Murder, for one. Adulterous affairs as well. Other acts of violence. Other crimes. And in the background, four wealthy men pull all the strings, taking advantage of everyone they can for personal gain.

Paraphrasing P.T. Smith, it’s a book of horrible endings and crimes that go unsolved because no one even bothers.

What’s also really cool—and which Andrea brought to light—is how the novel builds itself. Similar to John Dos Passos’sÌęU.S.A. Trilogy, it employs a mosaic structure, with stories constantly being interrupted by advertisements or other stories, only to pick up a few pages later, building and building in a sort of symphonic whirlwind of thwarted ambition and desperate acts.

Aside from the horrifically violent plot and interesting structure, were there other factors that drew you to Saccomanno’s work?

There is the fact that he received the Dashiell Hammett Prize, awarded by the International Association of Crime Writers, onÌętwoÌęoccasions: for Gesell DomeÌęand forÌę77.Ìę

Nice. Are there any other interesting stories about this book?

Actually, yes. There’s a character in the book who is a writer, the one journalist in Villa Gesell, who is more or less our moral bearing as we read. At one point, his house is burglarized and the computer with his manuscript is stolen. Supposedly, that’s based on a real-life event because, yes, Saccomanno lives in this very town.

Really? The local Chamber of Commerce must love him for writing this book?

. . .

Let’s move on toÌę77.

Let’s.

It comes out later this month, right?

Yep. On February 12th. I have great expectations for this book. Everyone who took the time to read Gesell DomeÌę(a book that takes both a lot of time and a strong stomach for all the violence, which, to be fair, is offset by moments of humor, but still, a strong fortitude is required), really loved it. (Jeremy Kitchen from the Chicago Public Library and Eye 94 radio claimed that it was “better than any Bolaño” and was willing to fight about it.) 77 has some of the same elements, although it’s a much more focused, digestible book.

What’s it about?

It’s about GĂłmez, a gay high-school teacher trying to make it by during the Videla dictatorship in Argentina, when there were lots of disappearances. The novel is mostly a flashback to 1977, as GĂłmez reflects on what he had to do in order to survive—a sort of “silent complicity” that still haunts him thirty years later. It’s a very plot-driven noir that is very much of the time laying out just how bad things can get if we don’t stand up to fascists. You can’t just bury your head in the sand and wait for things to get better, because they might not.

Another uplifting Open Letter book!

. . .

Are there other Saccomanno’s lined up for the future?

Not exactly. We are planning on doing more of his books, but without anything under contract, I don’t want to say more at this time. But it’s quite possible this will be unveiled during this Month of Saccomanno.

Exciting!Ìę

Very. But in the meantime, everyone should get copies ofÌęÌęand .ÌęAnd remember, if you use the code SACCOMANNO at checkout, you can get 30% off both of these. And stay tuned for longer excerpts from both, and possibly some other fun things.

translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken

Klougart’s novel was the first to be included in Writers & Books’ “Read Local” program, featuring great books from local (re: Rochester, NY) publishing houses. She was able to come here as part of a tour that included stops in Chicago, NY, Dallas, Houston, Portland, and San Francisco.

Here’s what Jeremy Garber from Powells had to say about her book:

The uncertainty, instability, doubt, regret, and longing that so often follow a failed relationship are richly and realistically conveyed. Klougart’s narrator’s emotional turmoil (punctuated, staccato) are quite nearly palpable and viscerally received. One of Us Is Sleeping, as much a series of thematically linked poetic offerings as a novel proper, is graceful and unforgettable. As Klougart’s narrator strives for clarity, understanding, and consolation, she’s left, as the rest of us undoubtedly are, to make sense of her own perceptions and boldly reassemble for herself the pieces of her shattered, shattering heart.

Josefine has another work in translation coming out later this year, and just released this amazing object in her home country of Denmark:

translated from the Danish by Kerri Pierce

Sticking to Denmark, the recently release Justine is the third book in our Danish Women Writers Series. It’s been getting a lot of good attention, and was even selected by The Rumpus for their As part of that, they ran

Brian Spears: Iben, I’ve never read de Sade’s Justine, but am I correct in thinking there are some parallels between that and your novel? Or is that coincidence?

Iben Mondrup: If there’s any comparison, it’s all about opposites, the polar opposites of De Sade’s Justine and mine. My Justine is sexual subject, she’s the one who desires, whereas De Sade’s Justine is an object of desire. She (my Justine), is aggressive, she’s going for what she wants as opposed to De Sade’s Justine, who is the target—and eventually the victim—of the desires of the world. She possesses no will.

Kerri Pierce: There’s a funny story, actually, about the graphic on the cover. One of my favorite parts of the book, and one of the editor, Kaija’s, favorite parts as well—which I also think speaks to Justine’s character—is when a one-night stand asks Justine if she’s a lesbian (and his tone is rather dismissive/incredulous) and she responds: “Wolf.”

Brian S: Kerri—I loved that moment in the book. That was brilliant.

Iben Mondrup: Exactly, she sees herself as a predator. A wolf, a lone she-wolf.

translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson

Chronologically, the second “modern classic” that we brought out this year, this is the one that’s getting the most buzz right now. An epic novel detailing the downfall of a Brazilian family through a series of confessions, letters, diary entries, and the like. Recently, The Onion’s A.V. Club reviewed it, stating:

The social commentary might have been lost on audiences when it debuted, but not his genre bending. Cardoso’s approach is as expansive as the lands on which his charmless bourgeoisie have lived for generations; he was a voracious reader with a preference for Gothic fiction and Russian lit, and those influences are on full display in Chronicle’s framework and themes. From its mysterious opening—which is actually the end of one character’s story—to the exploration of morality, the novel is a near-total manifestation of his talents.

translated from the French by Kazim Ali

The other “modern classic” I was alluding to, Abahn Sabana David was one of the few Open Letter titles to make it into the New York Times this year:

In this slim, raw political novel, Abahn the Jew and his double (also Abahn) spend a long night with Sabana and David, who have been sent to guard them by the Communist party boss Gringo. Fragmentary dialogue occurs about gas chambers, “Jew-dogs” and the fact that Gringo is coming by to kill Abahn(s) as a traitor. Gunshots and howling hounds are heard. By the last page, Sabana and David have allied themselves with their captive(s) and claimed the identities of Jews, the “laughter of joy . . . covering their faces.”

How to understand this text, available for the first time in English, in Kazim Ali’s translation?

translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith

At the start of 2016, I predicted this would be our huge breakout hit of the year. I was obviously wrong about that—at least according to sales, sheer number of reviews, random mentions on Internet lists—but I still stand by this novel as one of the best we’ve published. And after her next two translations come out—including The Owls’ Absence, which we’re doing next fall—I think readers will start to cotton on.

Of the reviews this did receive (so far), there are a number of really thoughtful, intelligent piece, such as

With Bae Suah living in Germany, it’s tempting to see parallels with her own life here, but A Greater Music is much more than a simple confessional piece. The shorter pieces that have appeared in English have been marked by beautiful writing, punctuated by spiky, aggressive outbursts against the strictures of modern society. Here, these themes and styles are extended over a much larger canvas; it’s a fairly slow tale, at least initially, and the story is given space to breathe before coming to life in the second half.

translated from the Spanish by Andrea Labinger

The first novel to be translated into English from the two-time winner of the Dashiell Hammett Prize, it just got a glowing review in the

Gesell Dome is a bizarro Robert Altman film in book form: hundreds of characters and storylines that paint a portrait of a community, but with events far stranger than anything Altman created.
If the novel has a central character, it’s the Villa, which, like other cities in Argentina, accepted Nazi war criminals as residents after World War II. Now it is home to more than 50,000 people, many of whom drive around in 4×4s and harbor prejudices against “half-breeds” and other foreigners.

These residents give Dante [local journalist] many stories to cover, including the scandal that opens the novel: Eleven kindergartners referred to as los abusaditos are abused at Nuestra Señoradel Mar, a religious school “where the snobs send their progeny.” Parents are rightfully horrified, but other residents don’t want the media to cover the story for fear of the effect the news will have on tourism.

translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel

Party Headquarters is the sixth book we’ve published from Bulgaria. To put this in context, all other publishers did a combined total of seven over the past nine years. Here’s what “The Literary Review”: had to say about it:

Clocking in at only 121 pages, Georgi Tenev’s taut novel Party Headquarters is at once a tragedy, a comedy, a love story and thriller, with echoes of A Clockwork Orange and Apocalypse Now. Translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel, it tells the story of a man tasked with visiting his father-in-law, a former Communist party boss. The father-in-law then sends him on a mission to bring back a suitcase containing a million Euros suspected to be pilfered from the coffers of the Bulgarian Communist Party. The whole story is set against the backdrop of the meltdown of Chernobyl, and if the basic plot seems like the kind of high-octane premise that Hollywood would deliver, that makes sense: Tenev also writes for film and TV.

translated from the Estonian by Adam Cullen

Sticking with our shorter books from 2016, I’ll turn to Estonia and Rein Raud, whose Brother got an “A-” from

The Brother doesn’t exactly ride into town on a white horse, and he isn’t simply all swagger, but the resemblance to the Sergio Leone-spaghetti Westerns (especially the ones with Clint Eastwood) that author Raud admits inspired him is striking. The story is almost all atmosphere and style (showing also Raud’s other big inspiration, the writing of Mr. Gwyn (etc.)-author Alessandro Baricco), and one can almost hear the (Western movie score) background music.

The relatively short chapters — each at most a few pages — are rich but stark, the essentials — of mood and incident — sketched but not belabored. Much is masterfully understated, but the full ramifications easily expand off the page for the reader. The book is short, and quite event-filled, but there’s an agreeable languor to it all too; nothing is rushed.

translated from the French by J. T. Mahany

Volodine has been gaining steam over the past few months, and the combination of this piece from with the forthcoming release of Radiant Terminus may finally push him over the edge. (I just received a wonderful email from Unabridged Books in Chicago about Volodine that really cheered my bitter soul.) As evident his New Inquiry piece (currently unavailable?), Volodine’s world is complex and greatly rewarding. It can also be a bit daunting to enter, but of the three titles Open Letter has done/will do, I think Bardo is the best place to start. From Ben Ehrenreich:

This year, Open Letter published Bardo or Not Bardo (2004) in a translation by J.T. Mahany, who also translated Post-Exoticism in 10 Lessons, Lesson 11. It goes without saying that it is a very odd book. [. . .] But Bardo or Not Bardo has its rewards. For all its darkness, it is extremely and blessedly silly. [. . .] Yes, it’s all very strange, but in Volodine’s world, that hardly counts as a complaint.

translated from the Spanish by Hilary Vaughn Dobel

This is our fifth Saer book—with more in the works—and was included on NPR’s list of

This imaginative novel traces the journey of Dr. Real and his mentor as they work treating patients at an insane asylum in Argentina. Saer’s prose, while often likened to Proust, carries a beautiful quality that is also uniquely his. Page after page, The Clouds is a poem to be savored.
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*

Overall, that’s a solid list. I hope you found a few books from us that you read and enjoyed last year. And stay tuned—2017 includes some insanely good titles, starting with books from Antoine Volodine, Can Xue, Rodrigo Fresan, Iceland’s James Joyce, and more . . .

by Guillermo Saccomanno, translated from the Spanish by Andrea G. Labinger

Original Language: Spanish

Author’s Home Country: Argentina

Original Date of Publication: 2013

Awards Won: The 2013 Dashiell Hammett Award! (There are multiple Hammett awards. This is the one for works written in in comparision to the one for English. In 2013, Angel Baby by Richard Lange won the English version of the prize.) It’s worth noting that this is the second time Saccomanno won the Hammett Award. He also won in 2008 for a novel called 77.

Also, Andrea Labinger won a PEN Heim Award for her translation.

Other Interesting Biographical Details: Saccomanno lives in Villa Gesell, the resort town where the novel is set. Additionally, before becoming a literary writer, he wrote comic books. Some of these appear to be ongoing (at least according to what I’m gleaning from his Spanish Wikipedia entry) including Leopoldo.

Description of the Book: Like True Detective through the lenses of William Faulkner and John Dos Passos, Gesell Dome is a mosaic of misery, a page-turner that will keep you enthralled until its shocking conclusion.

This incisive, unflinching exposĂ© of the inequities of contemporary life weaves its way through dozens of sordid storylines and characters, including an elementary school abuse scandal, a dark Nazi past, corrupt politicians, and shady real-estate moguls. An exquisitely crafted novel by Argentina’s foremost noir writer, Gesell Dome reveals the seedy underbelly of a popular resort town tensely awaiting the return of tourist season.

A Non-Jacket Copy Description: This is about Villa Gesell, a small resort town run by four corrupt assholes, and filled with violence, adultery, drug deals, and tons of other crimes that no one ever attempts to solve or rectify in any way whatsoever.

Praise from Famous People: We’re not the best at getting blurbs, but I did tell (who wrote an episode of HBO’s Westworld, which looks totally sick) about this book at BEA and he said something to the effect of “fuck yeah, I’d love to read that.” Which counts.

Praise from Booksellers: ““The first two pages of Gesell Dome, the first novel from Argentine author Guillermo Saccomanno to be translated into English, are enough to seduce any reader and a testament to the vitality of international fiction. Dark, daring and epic in scope, Gesell Dome is a damning verdict of contemporary life and human nature. The novel reveals the corrupt underbelly of a resort town when the tourists leave. Abounding with shady characters, all seemingly competing for worst resident on earth, Gesell Dome becomes a chorus of corruption and greed, of savagery and ruthlessness. It’s both vicious and unforgettable. Think Louis-Ferdinand CĂ©line on vacation in South America.”—Mark Haber, Brazos Bookstore

Audience: This book will appeal to anyone who likes neo-noir novels, books that are violent, or portraits of small, corrupt towns. That’s not to say it isn’t literary—the mosaic-like form that it employs allows Saccomanno to create fascinating juxtapositions, to paint a picture of a uncontrollably violent world, and to introduce hundreds of compelling characters.

Another “X Meets Y” Formulation: Like CSI meets Julio CortĂĄzar. Or like “The Part about the Crimes” from 2666 as told in a tabloid.

Publicity: Well, the book just came out, so there haven’t been a ton of reviews yet. (But hopefully there will be in the near future.) That said, Saccomanno was profiled in Publishers Weekly as one of the fall

Saccomanno, who has been living in Villa Gesell for most of the past 30 years, began work on the book in 2005. While writing he had the sense, he says, “that the town itself was dictating the story to me.” He adds, “Tolstoy supposedly said, ‘Describe your village and you will be universal.’ That idea was the driving force behind this novel. Violence, addiction, domestic violence, sexual abuse, blackmail, corruption, the lives that unfold in this atmosphere, all called out to me.”

PW also gave it a stating:

Never was there a cityscape as immersive, or a populace as rife with iniquity, as in Argentinian writer Saccomanno’s noirish Gesell Dome, his first novel to be translated into English. [. . .] Like Twin Peaks reimagined by Roberto Bolaño, Gesell Dome is a teeming microcosm in which voices combine into a rich, engrossing symphony of human depravity.

Sample Paragraphs:

If you’re a local and your parents come for the long weekend, you’ll have to put up with your wife’s constipated expression. And if your in-laws come, try to keep your plastic smile from becoming facial paralysis. Because, tell me, who can put up with their parents or in-laws in the house for three days straight. And let’s not even talk about your sister-in-law and her boyfriend. And you know there’s a kind of vibe between you and that little slut. So you’ve gotta proceed with extreme caution. Then there are the kids. If they’re not glued to the TV all day long, you’ve got them on top of you, bitching that they’re bored. Forget about a quickie with your wife. After lunch, when you’re logy and feel like taking a nap, along comes the witch, telling you to take the family out for a ride. And you’ve gotta get them all into the car and take them for a spin. Head toward the beach, they ask you. Till they wear you out, and even though you know you could get trapped in the sand, you let them have their way and look for a road down to the beach through the dunes. For a while you feel like it was worth it to indulge them, driving along the shore. That half-adventurous, half-romantic feeling. Until it’s time to turn around and go back, and you realize that the car is starting to get stuck. Everybody out. Get out and push. Hand me a shovel. There’s no shovel, asshole. There’s gotta be one. Take out the mat and put it under the wheels. Help me dig. And the tide coming in. The tide. Call the Auto Club. It’s got no charge, stupid. You forgot to charge the cell phone. I’m cold, Dad. Me too, Dad. Get into the car. I told you, idiot, I told you we’d get stuck on the beach. Now it’s raining buckets.

And the tide. The tide. The tide.

Longer Excerpts: The first long excerpt I posted from the this book—which I did in a fit of excitement when I finished proofing it—is online here.

As part of our catalog, you can also read section from the beginning “here.“http://www.openletterbooks.org/pages/gesell-dome-excerpt

The novel was also excerpted in both and

Personal Pitch: When I first read Andrea’s sample—the one that got her the PEN Heim Award—I was most intrigued by the structure. It’s a bit ADD, jumping from thread to thread, character to character—which is something that appeals to me personally for a few different reasons. This sort of fragmented structure eliminates a lot of the slow build, scene setting crap that I don’t care for in most contemporary fiction. In Gesell Dome, each fragment thrusts you right into a new life or situation. For example, I randomly opened a copy of the book and got this opening line, “Mable, the teller at Banco Provincia, wife of Mario Pertuzzi of Electromar, wasn’t pregnant when she and Daniel became lovers.” That’s all you need about Mabel before launching into her story. No pages of setting, no attempt to create her character through objective signifiers and objects—just a simple statement and you’re off.

Recently, like yesterday, I decided that for the time being, I was only going to read books that I knew I wasn’t going to fully understand on the first go. Thinks like Sokolov’s Between Dog & Wolf, Can Xue’s Frontier (well, reread in that case), or maybe Alan Moore’s Jerusalem. I realized that the only joy I’ve been getting out of books recently (like with Fresan’s The Invented Part, Blas de Robles’s Island of Point Nemo, and Pola Oloixarac’s Savage Theories) is the fun of trying to figure shit out. I’ve written—and lectured—about this a billion times, about the way the brain processes declarative, concrete statements versus what happens when you’re forced to puzzle things out, but for a while, I feel like I lost my way as a reader and was seeking pleasure in the straightforward, in the books that were written to be simply pleasurable. Which is dumb, since the idea of reading the new Foer book doesn’t sound pleasurable at all. It sounds like consuming shit in order to generate new mini-rants. That’s not the way to live.

Gesell Dome isn’t “incomprehensible” like Finnegans Wake, but there is a strain on the reader to, first of all, remember who the fuck all these characters are and how they’re related, but then to also see the overall pattern. This is a book that doesn’t have a single plot, but a multitude, some of which cross, others that run parallel, all of which help create a verbal tapestry depicting a town awash in misery and desperation. And we all know that misery is much more interesting to read about than joy and happiness. Regardless, the reading experience of having to piece things together is so gratifying and fun.

Finally, this is a novel of voices, which is another reason I like to read—to hear distinct ways of saying things. I mean this on a truly ground floor, sentence by sentence, level. Obviously, hearing different viewpoints from all over the world is valuable and interesting and mind-expanding, but I really like hearing how individuals express themselves. Verbal patterns, particular word choices and tics, etc. And Gessel Dome has a lot of that. These characters relate their own private sadnesses in their own peculiar way, and as a reader, you can just let it wash over you—like the sounds of the sea that are a constant throughout the book, rising and falling, tide in, tide out—hearing from myriad viewpoints one after another, some funny, all a bit damaged, and every one unique. That polyvocality is what truly won me over in terms of this book.

Buy it: Obviously, you can get this from your local bookshop or online retailer, but you can also buy it directly from us directly by Or you can always to Open Letter—the best way to receive some of the most varied and interesting voices of international literature, delivered right to your door each and every month.

Next week I’ll be back with a different Open Letter title—a deep cut from the backlist . . .

We signed this on a while back, shortly after translator Andrea G. Labinger won a for her work on this.¹ She sent us a longish sample (similar to but a few times longer)

This is a novel in voices, all set within Villa Gesell, a real-life resort town a few hours from Buenos Aires. Like most resort towns, it’s very popular in the summer months, but the winter is a bit of a slog. Like most small towns, this Villa is corrupt as fuck. There’s a group of “Kennedys” who pull all the strings on public projects, awarding contracts to relatives, not really giving a shit about the local citizens who spend 700+ pages cheating on each other, killing each other, committing suicide, suffering generally.

It’s a book told in fragments, with a single story stretched out over pages as it’s interrupted by anecdotes from Dante (who runs the local newspaper), first-person reflections. ads for any number of self-help and other groups, and other random things. Given this format and given the endless violence, it’s like Dos Passos mixed with Roberto Bolaño’s “The Part about the Crimes.”

Reading books like this—a fragmentary mosaic of sorts—requires letting the rhythm of the text take you over. The hundreds of characters, dozens of voices take you over and impose themselves, creating their own tragic, comic beats. Last night I fell into this book in the most complete of ways. It went from being “really, really good” to blowing my shit away completely. Which is why I’m sharing it here.

Enjoy! The book comes out next August and I’ll post more information as the time grows closer.

You know, I had this idea, jefe, Remigio says. We could make a pile of dough. The two of us, partners.

Partners in what, Dante asks.

In a novel, Remigio goes on. A pile of dough. With the secrets I know about this Villa and your flair for writing, we’d make one hell of a novel. I tell you what I know about everybody. And you write it.

A best seller, Dante goads him on. That’s what you’re thinking of.

But secret, a secret best seller. One that’ll never get published.

I don’t get it.

Simple, jefe. You write a novel about the Villa, one chapter for each character. Chicks and dudes. When the chapter’s done, I leap into action. I go see the person and tell them someone is writing a novel about the Villa. And that the person, a chick or a dude, shows up in one chapter. I give them a copy of the chapter to read. When they read it, they’re gonna want to kill themselves. Who wants their deepest secrets made public. Imagine the Villa’s secrets, the involvements, because here everyone is involved, in one way or another, with everyone else. When the characters read their part in the novel, the first thing they’ll think of is how to keep their chapter from coming out. And they’ll pay up, for sure. Since everyone here has a price, figure it out. Bingo! Everyone pays up. We’ll make a fortune.

A secret text, Dante says.

Call it whatever you want, jefe. You’re the one in charge of words. My job’s just to collect the dirty laundry. Yours is to write about it. And then I go by to collect.

And when the novel’s finshed, Dante asks. What then.

We’re not gonna be dumb enough to publish it. Our best seller’s gonna be a secret. That’s the cool part. Whadda you say.

We’d have to think it over carefully.

I’ve already thought it over, Remigio says. The only thing left is for you to make up your mind.

And what about fame, Dante asks. Because every writer is after glory. Let’s say I like fame.

Don’t give me that fame stuff, jefe. Death isn’t serious. Besides, what do you expect from posterity, tell me: a street with your name on it. Think it over right here and now. What matters is now, enjoying life.

Now the night envelops the car as it pulls up to the first lights of the Villa. Through his dark lenses, a blink of shimmer. Dante lights another cigarette. In spite of the shadows, Remigio scrutinizes him through the rear view mirror.

Don’t tell me it’s not a good idea, he says. Look how your face has changed. Imagine for a second what it would be like. We rake in the money and split. Think it over, jefe. It’s not every day such a great opportunity comes along. And when it does, you can’t let it slip away. You could get yourself not one Chiquita, but thousands of ‘em, whichever Chiquita you like. You know how many Chiquitas are on the horizon.

If everything is written, so too is the next act. And against that one, we cannot rebel. The most we can do is to read it. In the facts, in the sky, in the wind. But our condition as readers is conditioned. Beforehand. Never afterward. We don’t know what we’re here for. Sometimes we think we suspect why. But our suspicions can never be confirmed. Among other reasons, because when we think we’re sure of a cause, the effect unnerves us: it responds to a different reason. If we are nothing but texts, we are innocent. It’s true that these lines of reasoning aim to free us of guilt. As long as we are words, we might reason, let no one be blamed. In any case, the guiltiest party is none other than the author of our days. And yes, to believe that God is the author of our story doesn’t free us of guilt, but it does offer some relief. God is our consolation. Though if we really think about the matter, God is crafty: all He does is deceive us with readings, force us to doubt everything all the time, even His own existence. And then we ask ourselves if any greater evil than that – constant doubt – can be written, a doubt that gradually becomes suspicion, and so we end up suspecting not only everyone else, but ourselves as well. No, I’m not the one who’s writing this line.

If you’re a local and your parents come for the long weekend, you’ll have to put up with your wife’s constipated expression. And if your in-laws come, try to keep your plastic smile from becoming facial paralysis. Because, tell me, who can put up with their parents or in-laws in the house for three days straight. And let’s not even talk about your sister-in-law and her boyfriend. And you know there’s a kind of vibe between you and that little slut. So you’ve gotta proceed with extreme caution. Then there are the kids. If they’re not glued to the TV all day long, you’ve got them on top of you, bitching that they’re bored. Forget about a quickie with your wife. After lunch, when you’re logy and feel like taking a nap, along comes the witch, telling you to take the family out for a ride. And you’ve gotta get them all into the car and take them for a spin. Head toward the beach, they ask you. Till they wear you out, and even though you know you could get trapped in the sand, you let them have their way and look for a road down to the beach through the dunes. For a while you feel like it was worth it to indulge them, driving along the shore. That half-adventurous, half-romantic feeling. Until it’s time to turn around and go back, and you realize that the car is starting to get stuck. Everybody out. Get out and push. Hand me a shovel. There’s no shovel, asshole. There’s gotta be one. Take out the mat and put it under the wheels. Help me dig. And the tide coming in. The tide. Call the Auto Club. It’s got no charge, stupid. You forgot to charge the cell phone. I’m cold, Dad. Me too, Dad. Get into the car. I told you, idiot, I told you we’d get stuck on the beach. Now it’s raining buckets.

And the tide. The tide. The tide.

Once there was a sea lion. It washed up on this beach, to the south. For days it was stuck in the sand. It looked like it was dying. Wounds all over, abrasions.Along its flanks the skin was open, its flesh red, purple, dark. Every so often it moved its head. It was dying slowly. The beach dogs came over to it. Although the sea lion hardly moved, none of them got too close. If the sea lion, always in the same place, moved just a little, the dogs would back up, barking. Then came a long weekend. The tourists brought their children to see the oddity. The kids gathered stones . And threw them at it. A fun game, stoning it. The boldest ones, goaded by their parents, went after sticks to poke in its wounds. The parents seemed to enjoy it more than their children. You should’ve seen how they cheered them on. Till a southeaster knocked over the crowd of adults and children. The rising tide dragged the sea lion back into the ocean. No doubt when they returned to the city, the kids would have a good story to tell. A children’s tale. And they lived happily ever after.

Look at me: if there’s one gift I’ve got, it’s talent. I had the talent to come here. Mine was a literary decision. Because there’s nowhere else as ideal as the Villa if you want to write. No sooner did I get set up in a house in the forest than I got started on a novel. With what I inherited from my old man, who was a judge, since I’m not not the spending kind, I could and still can affort art. I gave him the first half of the novel. A combination of Henry Miller and Raymond Carver, my masters, from whom I leared to seek and find my own voice. Fly, Crazy Heart, it’s called. But I didn’t finish it. What happened was, when I was halfway through I got into songwriting. Because I also have talent for music. I wrote twenty-four, all at once. For a double album: I Surrender, I was gonna call it. Romantic songs, protest songs, metaphysical stuff. Kinda like a combination of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, with a touch of Bob Marley, too, but with my own personal seal, because I’ve got a style. I’ve always played, since I was a boy. First I played piano. Then I turned to guitar. One afternoon when I wasn’t thinking about anything, I picked it up and that’s how it went, first one, then another, and another. And without weed or booze. I’m not trying to tell you all twenty-four are brilliant, but there’s material for an album. They’re more like variations on the theme of the novel, which is autobiographical. And there they are – any time now I’ll go back to music. What happens is that having talent isn’t so simple. For example, when I was about to sign on with an independent label, I started thinking about the album cover and I got into painting. I always had talent for the visual arts. As a kid I won several sketching contests; I went to a painting workshop and even took part in a collective exhibition. A style somewhere between Rothko and Pollock was what my first stuff was like, but with a vibe of my own. I almost had the sample ready: Fly, Crazy Heart. Of course, the images I captured had to do with my personal thing. And that’s what I was into till recently. But I hit a dry spell. Sometimes inspiration takes its time. Sometimes it comes sooner, when you least expect it. And this place, I mean, it’s ideal if you’ve got talent. Now I’m taking it easy. You know, inspiration means a lot in art. And around here there are lots of people like me, people with talent, who understand you. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about ceramics and I’d really like to set up a little kiln out back, but I don’t want to rush things. It’s not a matter of going around starting a lot of stuff without finishing anything. It’s the risk of having talent, you know. That’s why the thing I don’t give up on is soccer. And I don’t miss a single Wednesday match with the boys. I’ve been living in the Villa for thirty-seven years and I’ve never missed a Wednesday soccer match. Because having talent for soccer and being a ten like me isn’t easy. You’ve gotta control talent like the ball. Because talent can result in a goal scored against you. What counts is precision, discipline, staying in shape.

Anita López tells the story at Gonza’s funeral. She had trouble getting over what happened to her in the classroom. She was teaching The Slaughteryard, as she never tires of explaining, when Julián Mayorano pulled out that automatic pistol. She was writing on the board. She’d felt the class’s silence, a silence that always makes you think before turning around, because if they’re quiet it’s because they’re doing something. She turned around. It wasn’t the kind of silence she’d thought. It was the silence of terror.

Julián Mayorano, standing, poking the gun barrel into his mouth. She doesn’t remember what she said to the boy, if she managed to say anything at all. Julián didn’t look like he was listening to reason. The silence was all that could be heard. She walked toward the boy, holding out her hand, hoping he would hand over the weapon. Please, Anita said. The only thing that came out of her was that please. With her hand extended. She was close to him when Julián squeezed the trigger.

The son of a well-known family, the Mayoranos, owners of one of the important home goods stores around here, Julián had a car, a motorcycle. He was a good student, not outstanding, but a good, hard-working kid. He was dating the adorable Gabrielita Ferri, daughter of a very Catholic family. Gabi was the one who cried for him the most. That boy had everything, says Anita to anyone who wants to listen. He must’ve also had a reason to kill himself.

We found out a few months after the classroom suicide, when Gabi’s started to show. She refused to have an abortion. Julián threatened to kill himself if she carried the pregnancy to term. She replied that if she had to choose between the two deaths, she preferred his. And Julián granted her wish.

You’re welcome! You should be able to preorder this in the near future, and for now, you can always add it to your

¹ Sorry, on a footnote kick today. But does it seem wrong to anyone else that you have to live in New York to serve on the Heim Translation grant committee? As a result, I’ve never been asked to serve, and our competitors essentially have first crack at all the books submitted for the award. Doesn’t seem right to me at all . . . I mentioned this to the PEN Translation Committee when they mentioned this qualification at a public event. I call this geographical discrimination! Good thing the judges didn’t snap up all the great works. Maybe they’ll wait until we build an audience for them first. (Kidding!)