Betrayed by Rita Hayworth

The late Argentine writer Puig (Kiss of the Spider Woman) offers an intimate look at the maids, stifled housewives, and would-be gangsters living on the outskirts of Buenos Aires during the country’s period of political transformation from 1933 to 1948. The rise of Peronist sentiment is in evidence, as the various characters grope for salvation in religion, education, and legitimate business—and find instead the cold comfort of the silver screen. The central figures are the movie-obsessed Toto Casals and his family, stricken after the death of a baby son. Like Toto, his mother Mita and father Berto also seek consolation from the movies and worry over the influence of a wild cousin, Héctor, over their son. Along the way, the reader encounters the family’s maids, who converse in snappy dialogue; the vengeful hood Cobito; and the fetching Paquita, tormented by the ideas of love and sin. As Toto comes of age, he explores his sexuality and is forced to choose between violence and peace while facing Cobito’s punishment. Puig (1932–1990) alternates between long passages of dialogue and luminous streams of consciousness, the latter revealing how Toto’s reality remains forever secondary to the films that thread through these characters’ collective dreamlife. It adds up to a pop art classic. (June)