Once Upon Argentina

Argentine writer Neuman (Fracture) delivers a dazzling kaleidoscopic account of his personal and familial history. At his urging, Andrés’s grandmother writes down the partial story of her life in a letter to him, leaving it abruptly unfinished. Years later, he decides “to complete the story,” imagining details of his ancestors’ lives and including his own recollections of his boyhood and youth in Argentina in the 1970s to 1990s. Across 75 short, vignette-like chapters told out of chronological order, a charming family saga comes into view. With a pitch-perfect balance of the light and the serious, Neuman describes the triumphs and terror faced by his family, including his musician mother’s performance in the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra for president Juan Perón and the torture of his aunt by the junta following the 1976 coup. At the heart is the author’s own coming-of-age in a bohemian neighborhood of Buenos Aires before his emigration to Spain with his family at age 14. A sharp prose style guides the reader handily through shifting places and times, and it renders the occasional figurative language (a student politician’s speech is like “a tune anxious to become reality”) all the more beautiful. This love letter to the author’s family and homeland transcends the personal and reaches the universal. (Aug.)