The Absent City-PB

This futuristic and fragmented detective novel blurs the lines between fact and fiction as it meanders through the life and mind of Junior, a reporter at a daily newspaper in Buenos Aires. Aided by Fuyita, a Korean gangster, and a scarred but beautiful woman named Julia, Junior is investigating a machine that contains the memory and mind of Elena, who is based on the real-life wife of Argentine writer Macedonio Fern ndez. Using different stylistic voices, Elena is telling stories. The state police, who fear her revelations about official atrocities against the Argentinean people, are also tracking her down and hope to deactivate her. The metaphoric, disembodied voice of Elena weaves through the overlapping narratives that support the novel and drive it forward, allowing for linguistic critiques and evocations of Argentina's troubled past, particularly the Dirty War, when ""everyday life went on in the middle of the horror."" Throughout the book, language itself is a protagonist, with long, quasi-academic passages describing the instability and transience of verbal communication. References to Argentine writer/politicians and James Joyce may prove puzzling to some readers. With its intriguing but demanding phrasing and images that confuse and entice, the novel at times requires detective work to solve its hermetic riddles. Though sometimes rarefied, this slim volume is pleasurable and rewarding. (Dec.) FYI: The Absent City has been performed as an opera in Argentina.