The Peruvian Notebooks

On a Saturday afternoon in December 1995, Peruvian immigrant Antonio Alday Gutiérrez lies in his small Delaware house, contemplating his failed creation, Anthony Allday—the Americanized version of himself that "could not exorcise the ghosts of Tecora" in 22 years in the U.S., and whom he has just committed a murder to protect. Antonio's stocktaking comprises the book, including sections of his "Peruvian Notebooks," a diarylike work in progress containing the bookish Antonio's reflections on his past and self-fashioning, as well as various letters home. The letters bespeak a success that didn't exist (as Allday, he was a night guard at a mall), and in the book's near-past, cousin Genaro's impending arrival from Peru threatens to smash his "thick shell" of lies and delusions. A Peruvian immigrant himself, Muñoz is a professor of sociology at Swarthmore College and the author of critical studies as well as a Spanish-language novel; this is his first novel written in English. Repetitive flashes into Antonio's postmurder recriminations are tedious, and readers will have guessed his victim's identity long before it is revealed. The book is richest when relating details of American life through the eyes of a bewildered newcomer in the early 1970s. (Oct.)