2024 in Reading (So Far)
The Good, The Bad and The Disappointing of the First Months of the Year

I know it’s been a while, but I’m returning (briefly or not, we’ll see) to Substack with a reading roundup for the first half (roughly) of 2024. It should go without saying that there is a clear thematic bend here, as I’m neck-deep in what I hope is (fingers crossed) the final form of an Argentina-related project I’ve been working on for quite a while. Also, I just like to keep up with local discourses on memoriaverdadyjusticia™ as well as gain new insights into a period that is my own personal Roman Empire. As I’ve read a lot in translation these past few months, all translated work is identified with the name of the translator (yes, I can and will #NameTheTranslator), along with the original title.
So without further ado, I present to the handful of people who read this little blog the good, the bad and the disappointing of the past few months.
La llamada by Leila Guerriero
This year in reading started off with an immersive, propulsive, five-star bang. La llamada (“The Call”) is the latest from Argentine journalist Leila Guerreiro. It is, as its subtitle states, un retrato, a portrait of Silvia Labayru, an ex-Montonera and survivor of the infamous ESMA clandestine detention center. But Labayru isn’t the only ex-Montonera ESMA survivor willing to go on the record, so what makes her so special, or at least special enough to warrant an entire book?
In Guerriero’s hands, Labayru transforms into a complex, multilayered protagonist of a story that challenges our conceptions of what it means to be a victim and a survivor and the expectations we have of each. Labayru is both an imperfect victim and an imperfect survivor—an imperfect victim given her participation—albeit obviously forced—in the infamous case of the kidnapping of the founders of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and the French nuns, and an imperfect survivor because she has refrained from dedicating her entire life to human rights and memory activism (among other examples). Guerriero’s reflexivity concerning her subject, though repetitive at times, functions as a narrative device that directly implicates the reader and questions our latent, oftentimes unspoken desire for the morbid and sensational that inevitably accompanies testimonies like these.
I usually hate calling a book “necessary” or “essential” because more often than not, these are descriptors used for mediocre to subpar work that nevertheless imparts the correct contemporary political or cultural message, but La llamada is a more than necessary and essential addition to the los 70 canon. If you can read Spanish and are already familiar with the ESMA victim-perpetrator universe, definitely check it out, and if not, then check it out anyway; hopefully an English translation will become available soon.
Things We Lost in the Fire (Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego) by Mariana Enriquez (trans. Megan McDowell)
Mariana Enriquez might be the most famous contemporary Argentine writer today. Known for her high-brow horror that highlights the darker side of contemporary Argentine reality, Enriquez is widely and deservedly praised worldwide. Reading Enriquez’s short story collection—or anyone’s short story collection, for that matter—is like picking candy from a pick and mix bag, or in Enriquez’s case, a treat-filled spooky plastic Halloween pumpkin. The first two stories in the collection (“El chico sucio/The Dirty Kid” and “La hostería/The Inn”) set the bar high, perhaps too high, and while I didn’t hate the rest, I found that none of them could measure up to those first two, though all the stories were technically well written and constructed. Like I said, pick and mix candy—you have your favorite types and flavors. For whatever reason, I’ve found that I prefer contemporary-set fiction that takes place outside of the United States (perhaps familiarity breeds contempt?). Give me the latent fears of the clase media porteña like Enriquez does over those of American suburbanites any day.
Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris
The Bosnian War and the wider dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia that violently unfolded throughout the 1990s, is, like Argentina in the 1970s, a topic that will never cease to grab my attention. As such, whenever I see a work of fiction that deals with this time period, I am obligated to read it. Black Butterflies follows Zora, a wife, mother and renowned artist as she witnesses her beloved hometown of Sarajevo slowly and irrevocably transform into a war zone. With her husband and adult daughter safely in the UK, Zora, now alone, must endure the brutal siege and forge bonds of solidarity with her fellow Sarajevans who find themselves in the same harrowing situation.
Unfortunately, Black Butterflies did not deliver and gets two stars only for historical accuracy (it was clear the author did her research, which is more than I can say about a lot of books dealing with this topic) and good intentions (the novel’s “bias” is clearly anti-nationalist, if a little on the kumbaya side). For a book centered on the most devastating conflict to hit Europe since the Second World War, Black Butterflies was surprisingly dull, featuring a cast of cliche-but-recognizable characters (the Good Serb who loves multicultural Sarajevo, the handsome Bosnian Muslim intellectual, the precocious child whose tragic death induces pathos in readers, among others) in everyday wartime situations that failed to generate any interest or emotional investment—in this way, it reminded me a lot of the equally as underwhelming and utterly pedantic The Cellist of Sarajevo. Again, good intentions are good, commendable even, but in literature and in all art, they are simply not enough. This was basically a Bosnian War beach read, and not a particularly entertaining or engaging one.
Almirante cero by Claudio Uriarte
What might look like a simple biography of Emilio Eduardo Massera, the former Commander-in-Chief of the Navy and member of the first cohort of the military junta that ruled Argentina from 1976-1983, is, in reality, a comprehensive depiction of an era in all of its complexities and contradictions. While much of “Admiral Zero” concerns itself with its titular character, a self-obsessed delusional blowhard with grandiose and lethal pretensions to power, at the same time, it reveals the extent of the infighting that plagued the junta and that plagues all groups of ruling elites since time immemorial.
Uriarte also presents a novel (to me) and thought-provoking claim concerning the nature of state terrorism, asking if “state terrorism” can exist in the absence of a State (Uriarte argues that a State as such ceased to exist under the junta and that instead Argentina was ruled by competing military fiefdoms that responded to different branches and factions of the Armed Forces; in other words, Argentina was subject to a form of institutionalized gang rule). As the concept of “state terrorism” (as contrasted with the conventional terrorism of armed non-state actors) is now a mainstay of human rights and historical memory discourses both within Argentina and abroad, Uriarte’s argument regarding its nature and application is one worth considering and one that continues to weigh on my mind.
Though constrained by its early 1990s publication date, still this is a book anyone seriously interested in los 70 must read, and while there’s no translation, if you’re this interested in los 70, you should be able to read Spanish anyway.
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
Nothing pleases me more than to inform everyone that Rachel Kushner is back! After the middling The Mars Room, I’d feared she’d lost her touch with fiction, but thankfully, I was wrong. Though Creation Lake doesn’t come out until September, I thankfully received an ARC and can thus wholeheartedly endorse it before its official publication date.
Creation Lake follows the pseudonymous protagonist “Sadie Smith” as she infiltrates an anarcho-primitivist hippie commune in southwestern France. Her powerful handlers in the private sector believe the peaceful group has the potential to turn violent, and they enlist “Sadie” to provide them with all the necessary intel. Kushner weaves “Sadie”’s story with that of Bruno Lacombe, the group’s ideological North Star, an ex-’68er who decided to quite literally leave society after having failed to transform it. Bruno lives in a cave near the village where “Sadie” is based and communicates with the followers via emails in which he expresses his admiration for Neanderthal culture and his belief that the caring and sensitive Neanderthals, as opposed to the violent and selfish homo sapiens, were the superior human race, and one homo sapiens would do well to imitate as opposed to belittle.
People—and by people, I mean the marketing team for this title—are calling this a thriller or noir but it’s really an examination of humanity’s evolution—physical, technological, ideological, and moral—over millennia; perhaps most importantly, Creation Lake manages to accomplish this without ever becoming overly preachy or didactic. Though not without some flaws—”Sadie” is a typical Kushnerian protagonist, an unassumingly beautiful, intelligent, quietly badass Cool Girl first-person narrator—Creation Lake is nevertheless a synthesis of the very best of Kushner’s fiction.
Confession (Confesión) by Martín Kohan (trans. Daniel Hahn)
Martín Kohan is a contemporary Argentine author whose work I’ve been meaning to read for a while, and there was no better introduction to Kohan’s oeuvre than Confession/Confesión. Confession (I’ll use the English title, as this is the version I read, though I’ll definitely check out the original Spanish at a later date) is a daring, expertly crafted triptych centered on a grandmother (Mirta López) and her grandson, the novel’s narrator. The first section follows young Mirta in her hometown of Mercedes, where she experiences a sexual awakening inspired by none other than a teenage Jorge Rafael Videla, head of the Argentine Army and president of the last military dictatorship’s first junta. Kohan is obviously a Male Author™ but I truly don’t care that he “dared” to do this, as it all rang very true to me “as a woman,” and that is all that should matter.
The second part centers on the real case of “Operation Seagull” (Operación Gaviota, which you can read about in Spanish here), a failed assassination attempt on Videla by the ERP (Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo/People’s Revolutionary Army). This part links the Río de la Plata-related interludes in the first third to the ERP’s plot that involved the use of these underground canals to transport dynamite to the airport tarmac (the idea was that they’d detonate the explosives just as Videla’s plane was about to take off). The final part brings Mirta López and her grandson back together in the nursing home where Mirta now lives. Over a long game of truco (South American poker, more or less), Mirta makes a confession (hence the title) that I won’t divulge here but that, suffice to say, reveals her own complicity in the dictatorship’s crimes.
Daniel Hahn’s English translation published by Charco Press has thankfully made this title accessible to a wider audience, so I encourage everyone to check it out. Next to Kushner’s Creation Lake, Confession/Confesión is the best novel I’ve read so far this year (and may there be many more).
Sinfonia Para Ana by Gaby Meik
I was first made aware of the existence of this book by the film adaptation of the same name (2017, directed by husband-wife pair Ernesto Ardito and Virna Molina), which is well-made, has a killer ‘70s-inspired soundtrack and definitely pulls on the heartstrings, as films dealing with this topic tend to do. That being said, the source material leaves a lot to be desired, to say the very least. Quite frankly, “Symphony For Ana” (the novel) reads like a Dirty War era-set Wattpad fic centered on the relationship between two best friends in early adolescence (think middle school aged) and their political and sexual awakening. Characters that serve as compelling vehicles for the film’s narrative are rendered flat and lifeless in textual form, and what appears on screen to be a natural progression of each character’s emotional arc comes across instead on the page as emotionally stunted and shallow. Though this may be a personal hang-up, I also felt the pre-adolescent protagonists simply experienced far too much in very little time; in this way, the novel reminded me of the film Thirteen.
While I understand that the author’s intentions are beyond commendable and that this work comes from a place of deep personal pain and sorrow—the author essentially wrote this to remember her disappeared high school friends and classmates—I still feel the film does a better job of memorializing these young desaparecidos, so check that out instead if you’re interested.
School for Patriots (Ciencias morales) by Martín Kohan (trans. Nick Caistor)
I started my second Kohan novel with my expectations sky high, given how much I enjoyed Confesión/Confession and given how School for Patriots (Ciencias morales, “Moral sciences”) deals with similar themes of la última dictadura’s impact on Argentine society. Alas, I was, to my surprise and disappointment, quite let down by this.
School for Patriots centers on María Teresa, an assistant teacher/glorified babysitter at the National School of Buenos Aires (Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires1), an elite and intensely competitive public high school. El Colegio, as it’s known, is one of the best—if not the best—high schools in all of Argentina, one that counts numerous presidents, ministers, famous intellectuals and other Very Important People among its alumni. El Colegio is also historically known for its strong culture of political activism, but it’s 1982 and the dictatorship has been in full swing for around six years now and the students are ruled by a rigid authoritarianism that mirrors that of the country (obviously). María Teresa is a rule follower and lives for nothing more than to keep her potentially unruly students in line, but her penchant for discipline is what eventually leads her to ruin. At some point, she’s convinced her students are smoking in the boys’ bathroom and this wild goose chase leads to some of the most tedious parts of the novel—endless scenes of María Teresa engaging in what amounts to voyeurism and endless descriptions of pee and penises (María Teresa is very sheltered and finds them to be very weird and gross).
School for Patriots is one of those novels that should’ve been a short story or even a novella. While I admired Kohan’s focus on “craft” in Confession, here his style is the Spanish-language equivalent of the dreaded North American “MFA fiction”—cinematic (indeed, Ciencias morales was adapted to film and renamed La mirada invisible, “The Invisible Eye”), technically proficient on a line level with an unexpected narrative twist at the end, but overall, absolutely bloodless.
Savage Theories (Las teorías salvajes) by Pola Oloixarac (trans. Roy Kesey)
If Mariana Enriquez is Argentina’s most famous contemporary author, then Pola Oloixarac is perhaps Argentina’s most polarizing (no pun intended) contemporary author. Best known outside of Argentina for Mona, Oloixarac’s debut Savage Theories/Las teorías salvajes is difficult to describe and even more difficult to summarize. Part oblique (very oblique) look at los 70 and everything that entails, part campus novel centered on the iconic Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Buenos Aires and part philosophical and anthropological commentary on violence, Savage Theories is messy, deranged and, if you know a little bit about recent Argentine history and contemporary issues as I do, quite a lot of fun.
I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised that this got translated into English and published to as much acclaim as it has, given the Anglophone publishing industry’s tendency towards pearl-clutching moralism and risk-aversion (Savage Theories is, as they say, quite “problematic” in many respects)—perhaps there is hope yet. Though uneven at times, overall it’s a rewarding read and well-worth checking out and of all the translated work on this list, it’s the one I’m the most eager to read in the original.
Last House by Jessica Shattuck
Sometimes you’re in the mood for the literary equivalent of comfort food, something that’s satisfying yet unpretentious, and Last House hit the spot for me. Part family saga, part novel of ideas, Last House follows the Taylor family as they navigate the latter half of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st in America. Nick and Bet are archetypes of the Greatest Generation—Nick is a stoic World War II veteran working as an oil company lawyer whose first big assignment takes him to Iran; Bet is a housewife with her proverbial wings cut by the postwar demands of family and homemaking—while daughter Katherine and son Harry become involved in the activist and counterculture scene of the 1960s and ‘70s.
What I admired most about Last House was how non-judgemental it was; the tone is thoughtful and reflective, never preachy and agenda-driven. Even the portrayal of the book’s ostensible villain—Nick’s CIA agent friend who helps put the 1953 coup that overthrew Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh into motion—is more ambivalent and nuanced than I had expected; the character comes across, ultimately, as more pathetic than pathologically evil. Likewise, the activist milieu in which Katherine finds herself is depicted truthfully, as one of both good-hearted idealists and ego-driven narcissists who fetishize “the struggle.” In this way, Last House is a superior version of Mobility by Lydia Kiesling, another recent novel centered on oil and the oil industry complete with some requisite environmental/climate and Middle East commentary that felt too pamphlet-like for my taste (which shouldn’t come as a surprise, as Mobility took a lot of inspiration from Upton Sinclair’s Oil!).
Elena Holmberg. La mujer que sabía demasiado by Andrea Basconi
True crime meets la última dictadura in what I would describe as a companion read to the aforementioned Almirante cero, which covers almost the same territory but in a more thorough and engaging way. The case of Elena Holmberg, a diplomat who was abducted and murdered in Buenos Aires in December of 1978, is a fascinating one that showcases the extent of the junta’s infighting. Elena Holmberg was the daughter of a prominent, “traditional” (read: old money) Argentine family with strong links to the country’s economic, political and military elite (particularly the Army—this becomes extremely relevant in regards to her untimely death). Holmberg was perhaps the dictatorship’s most atypical victim, as General Videla’s strongest soldier in the diplomatic corps of the time, a fervent anti-communist and anti-Peronist who wholeheartedly believed in the junta’s “war against subversion.” Nevertheless, through her work at the Argentine embassy in Paris, she managed to fall afoul of Admiral Massera’s ruthless pursuit of power (which involved the use of the embassy in Paris as a base upon which he could launch his political career—Google translate all the information you can find about the “Centro Piloto de Paris” or the so-called Paris Pilot Center). This Washington Post article is also a useful primer on Holmberg and the twisted web of the junta’s infighting, as well as an interesting look at foreign media coverage of the dictatorship at the time.
Like I said, much of what is covered in “Elena Holmberg: The Woman Who Knew Too Much” is also covered in Uriarte’s book on Massera. Still I felt reading this was helpful insomuch that it was a good resource for gaining additional insight into the traditional Argentine upper class (a subculture that features prominently in what I’m currently working on), as well as the social scene of mid-late 1970s Buenos Aires.
This is the same school that features in Symphony for Ana.