tropical night falling by Manuel Puig

 Notes –

This was Puig’s last novel ,he wrote numerous novel prehaps his most famous was the kiss of the spider women which was also made into a highly acclaimed film ,he lived in exile in both italy and mexico ,he also worked as a screenwriter ,he had a close friendship with the translator of this book and most of his books Suzanne Jill Levine ,his works are currently being republished by dalkey archive in us ,the edition i read was the Faber version from the 1990’s

The book –

the book centres on to elderly sister in their eighties as they live in an apartment in Rio De Janeiro in exile from Argentina ,there is a colourful cast of characters surround them ,from a man fascinated with a teenage maid ,violence and the undercurrent of sexual tension then one sister gets  an invitation from a son and goes away to visit and the rest of book is in the form of letters about their day to-day life ,.

Lucerne october 8 1987,

dear Nidia;

Here I am writing from devil’s hill .who would have thought it a week ago .The trip was good ,luckily i Insisted on travelling economy class ;it was empty in the back and a sweet varig stewardess gave me a row of five seats and I went to sleep as soon as they took the dinner tray away ………….

the first of the letters in the later stages of the book between the sisters .

My view –

Now this was a book of two halves for me the first which i really didn’t enjoy i found Puigs narration and dialogue a bit all over the place at times and found my self losing my way in the story .but the second half when the sisters visits family aboard and what happens was wonderful the letters are so well written and seem so realistic almost like the letters my own grandmother wrote that lost art of penmanship ,so if your willing to work through the hard first hundred pages the second half is wonderfully rewarding ,I ll read Puig again he has a certain talent for sexual tension and a challenging writing style .

score –

three toe sloth  as it is strange and very slow but an amazing creature a bit like this book .

Have you read Puig ?