Thursday Night Widows
Claudia Piñeiro
2009, Bitter Lemon Press
274 pages
BITTER Lemon have pulled out all the stops to bring this title – a scathing critique of Argentine society – into English. First published in Spanish in 2005 as Las viudas de los jueves an award-winning psychological and social portrait of the Argentine rich who choose to live behind locked doors away from the squalor of the rest of society, a film of this title is now reportedly being produced. The bestselling crime novel struck a chord with readers for the ingenious way it engaged with the decadence of the upper-class – creating a self-centred microcosm of Argentine society in the form of a gated community populated by men and women accustomed to a comfortable lifestyle – and won the Premio Clarín in 2005. Set amid the fallout of a decade of Menemism, the story highlights the extent to which some men will go, in leaner times, to maintain their status. Miranda France has crafted an agile translation that loses none of the original suspense. – GO’T
