Carolina De RobertisBesprekingen

My blog is called History and Books and Dance and Stuff so a historical fiction book about tango ticks pretty well all the boxes. And The Gods of Tango has quite a lot of Stuff too. In fact it’s a vast, sprawling work about tango and Buenos Aires and Italy and sexuality and those old tango perennials, love and death.

I can’t begin to discuss the plot, partly because there are twists and turns and I don’t want to spoil it for you and partly because the 384 packed pages defy synopsification. (Is that a word? It should be.)

What you need to know is that the story starts in 1913 with Leda arriving in Buenos Aires, leaving a narrow life in a village just outside Naples in search of opportunity in the New World. In the first of many shocks in the book, all her plans are thrown into disarray before she has even left the boat and she finds herself struggling to survive in a city that seems to teeter forever on the edge of madness.

It’s a story packed with characters, all so perfectly drawn that you never get lost, but one of the biggest, most important, characters is Buenos Aires itself and particularly San Telmo, a part of the city I feel particularly at home in. The danger, excitement and opportunity of the city is perfectly captured. It is overcrowded and filthy (even more so in 1913 than now). Yet, as today, it holds you. Leda knows that Buenos Aires destroys its children, yet she cannot bring herself to leave. A peaceful life in a small Italian village is no longer something she can settle for.

Leda falls in love with tango. The music, she thinks, can save her. And it does, though it means she must sacrifice everything. (No spoilers, but ‘everything’ isn’t too much of a stretch here.) She carves out a life in the violent world of tango. She is there as tango moves from the bars and the brothels to the dance halls and eventually the grand clubs and cabarets, even achieving an international respectability. But for Leda, it is always about the music of the people, starting with the rhythms brought from Africa with slavery. (The Gods of Tango is unusual in featuring a black bandoneon player whose grandfather was probably a slave. Argentina used to have a substantial black population but no one talks about that now.)

If you are interested in the history of tango (you’ve probably realised I am), then The Gods of Tango is worth reading just for its description of how and why the music developed through the Golden Age. But the book is much, much more than that. I’ve never read a book by a woman which understands so well the reality of being a man. And when she deals with different aspects of sexuality, she writes better than anyone else I have read, or ever expect to read.

De Robertis has won prizes and fellowships and is definitely a ‘literary author’, a label I am generally suspicious of. But this is someone who has earned their reputation through extraordinary hard work as well as an exceptional ability to write. Leda’s life in Italy was researched in Italy. De Robertis reached Italian emigration to Argentina and Afro-Argentinian history (an area which, as I’ve mentioned, is generally overlooked). She studied the violin as well as tango history and learned to dance. She has explored Buenos Aires today and developed a deep understanding of its history. And she writes fantastic prose. (I just said that, but I’m saying it again.)

I’m getting carried away. All I can say is that this is an astonishing book.

Read it.

3.5 rounded up. Loved the representation and learning about an unfamiliar place/time/political setting.

This novel should have a two-star review based on the first 250 pages, but I bumped it up a star for its strong ending. I couldn't escape the thought that I was essentially reading Marquez-lite - which isn't a fair comparison, but one that The Invisible Mountain invites. Particularly irksome is the emphasis on the poetic skills of some of the characters, but when we actually get to read some of the poetry it seems overwrought and amateurish. This is the same criticism I had of _The Song is You_ - if you're going to talk about someone writes brilliant poetry/lyrics, your examples better support this assertion.

Despite these complaints, it was interesting to learn about Uruguayan history, and the ending was powerful and unsentimental. Worth reading, but nowhere near a classic.

A family saga that follows the history of Uruguay over decades. The generations of one family live their lives through democracy, dictators and elections. A fascinating read about Montevideo and the people who live there. Some sections were a hard read, particularly when Salome was imprisoned and Eva's awful time at the shoe shop too.

This is a tough political novel – just the kind I need to avoid right now. But, from the beginning a journalist is interviewing the never-identified Jose Mujica of Uruguay, known as the world's poorest president. The reader therefore knows that Mujica survived imprisonment and torture, and unexpectedly, rose to the presidency.

This foreknowledge, as well as the conversations with the cynical frog, lighten the mood as Mujica reflects on his experiences. The humor made it possible for me to read his experiences and know that, he not only endured, he became a singular leader because of them.

I knew nothing about the history of Uruguay. Now I won’t forget this story.

I found this well-written, entertaining and thought-provoking.

A young woman comes to interview a man who had been President of his country. He had also been in his earlier life a guerilla, fighting for the soul of his country, fighting for the freedom of the people. He had spent twelve years in solitary confinement, four of those years in a hole in the ground, a place where he came close to losing his mind. It is a frog, a simple frog, who would be his salvation. A talking frog at that, a frog that would make him relive his past, help him to stay grounded, to not give up. Was the frog real? The mind can play tricks in dire situations, yet real or not, it saved his sanity.

There are no names given for this humble man, who from this hole, would years later become President and unite his people. Restore democracy. Although his name is not given, in the afterward, the author acknowledges that this book is inspired by the former president of Uruguay, Jose Monica aka Pepe. There are warnings here, warnings of how easily democracy can be subverted. The United States, Norway, other countries caught in the wave of populism, a wave that can destroy a fragile democracy if it is not fought against.

Like all her books, this author's fiction contains horrors, of past, present and what could come without due diligence.

"Presidents should not pretend they're kings."

"The only refuge left is what we give each other."

Definitely a political book from a leftist perspective wrapped around a plot regarding an elderly former president of a South American country. The book flips between the ex-president (the poorest president on the earth) and a Norwegian reporter who is interviewing him and the time the president spent in a dungeon talking with a live frog who eventually gave him the will to live on.

There is a lot of leftist philosophy (not that I disagree, but it's right out there) all men are equal, political systems should be different, etc. But as the unnamed president states, ruling in a manner to give equality to all is not possible - he was a former rebel who later serves as president. The bottom line - we all need each other and everything is dependent on something or someone else. Not a bad read, not particularly engaging either at times. Lots of references to the "election up north" which terrifies the president as well as the reporter.

I grabbed this book because I was interested in learning something about Uruguay, its dictatorship and what it is like to live under one. Guess I'm preparing for 2024 just in case. Although I see why so many reviews see this a book about being a lesbian under extreme suppressed times, but I saw it more about the suppression of being different. My feeling using lesbians just made the story easier to make the point. De Robertis did really well to develop all 5 women, saving the most troubling story of Malena for the last. Malena and Paz were my favorites, the former experiencing extreme horror and the latter too young to know different having grown up when the dictatorship was already well established. The author painted a pretty clear picture of what life is like in that environment. It's well written, very easy read and overall very enjoyable but pretty predictable.

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The President and the Frog by Carolina De Robertis is a political fiction story examining justice, leadership, and how we remember things. Ms. De Robertis is a published author who wrote several international bestsellers.

The ex-President of an unnamed Latin American country is being interviewed by a European journalist. While discussing his legacy, as well as the status of democracy around the globe, the President reminisces. He especially remembers his past as a revolutionary, a prisoner, and a guerilla.

The President, remembers a strange event he had in jail, but does not want to share it. While held in solitary confinement for a long time, the only creature ever to talk back to him was… a frog.

Previously, I have enjoyed reading the works of Carolina De Robertis very much, and am always on the lookout for one of her books. I was happy to receive a copy of the book, all in all, it did not disappoint.

The President and the Frog is a short book, a novella if you will, though it has a lot to say. The interviewer in this book seem to ask questions she cares about, certainly different from other reporters. The ex-President realizes that and surprisingly wonders if he should share his deepest secret – a talking frog

The symbolism is deep in the book, Europe, Trump’s America, Latin America and post WWII Asia are all present. This is a hopeful book, even though the themes of war and suffering is at the forefront.

Ms. De Robertis takes on several political ideologies. The novel itself does not mention names, or places. The author, however, does admit that she modeled the ex-President after Jose Mujica, Uruguay’s former President.

I did appreciate that the author managed to hit several hot-button topics without preaching. In an indirect way, Ms. De Robertis sends a message without hitting the reader over the head with it. Additionally, I wondered if the choice of a magical frog was due to the politicized internet meme of Pepe the Frog, appropriated by white supremacists, or was simply a coincidence.

I enjoyed the writing very much, it’s strong and delicate at the same time. Latin America’s literary device of magical realism, which the author used in Perla as well, shows its power in storytelling.

Carolina De Roberts latest book is inspired by the life of Jose Mujica, the former President of Uruguay. In this story, the unnamed 82-year-old President of an unnamed country reflects on his life. He has been called the “Poorest President in the World” choosing to live in a small, unassuming farmhouse with his wife, his garden, and his dogs. The narrative moves back and forth from the present to the time the president was imprisoned as a guerrilla and a revolutionary. During that time, a frog would visit him in his dark cell and help him understand his purpose. Its filled with brutality and justice and hope. This book will have as much importance if read twenty years from now as it deals with survival and justice.

One day, Perla arrives home to find a strange man in her parents' living room, with no sign of how he entered. The man is soaked and oozes water all the time. A growing bond develops between the two as their back stories are told via flashbacks: The stranger is one of the “dis­ap­peared”, a vic­tim of Argentina's Dirty War, speaks of his horrendous torture and his lost family. Meanwhile, Perla remembers her childhood, her strong relationship with her Papa and odd relationship with her mother, and her recent estrangement from her writer boyfriend. Their stories are intertwined, , but the reveal is slow and quite well done. There is some beautiful imagery in Buenos Aires and Uruguay, and I liked how the geraniums which Perla plants with her mother were an allegory for the Dirty War itself. The book was a bit slow and meandering or I would have given 4 stars.

teen/adult nonfiction (viva la resistencia). Some of these letters spoke more strongly to me than others, but on the whole these were enlightening, empowering, and a reminder of what we stand for. Thanks to Vintage (Penguin Random House) for providing a review copy.

First off, I'd like to exorcise a song that's been stuck in my head for a couple weeks--when my parents saw me reading this, they started singing Donovan's "There Is a Mountain," and every time I picked this up since, it would loop in my head incessantly. Maybe I'm free now?

But seriously, this is a wonderful book. It is lush and evocative, set primarily in Montevideo and focusing on the cultural and political life of Uruguayans. I was also utterly ignorant of this country--part of the reason I chose it for this year's Read Harder challenge--so all the events were shocking and enthralling, sending me to do some research of my own. It was painful for me to take so long to read it because every time I opened the book, I just wanted to curl up on the couch with a cup of hot tea and lose myself in the atmosphere and tumultuous lives of Pajarita, Eva, and Salomé. (This is saying something for me--a light spoiler alert/trigger warning: each woman suffers physical and sexual assault as well as psychological abuse--if I wasn't so invested in their lives, I would have had to put it down.)

It was a slow burn of a book, I must admit...there is SO MUCH covered in 360 pages. I would say it is plot-driven, and this bugged me a little in the beginning as I felt I needed to get to know the characters a little better. However, as it went on, the characters deepened (at least for Eva and Salomé--perhaps Pajarita is meant to remain inscrutable), and by the end, I was crying for everyone in the book. I was wondering how De Robertis would wrap up these storylines by the end, and boy, did she ever...and so beautifully.

I first became acquainted with De Robertis after reading her essay, "Every Day of Her Life," in [b: Count on Me: Tales of Sisterhoods and Fierce Friendships|13259259|Count on Me Tales of Sisterhoods and Fierce Friendships|Las comadres para las Americas|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1339799786s/13259259.jpg|18460758], and after this, I am certain I will be reading the rest of her work. I can't wait to lose myself again.

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Read Harder: A book set in Central or South America, written by a Central or South American author

1900 wird in einem Dorf am Rio Negro Pajarita geboren. Nach ihrer Vermählung mit einem italienischen Immigranten zieht das Paar ins prosperierende Montevideo.De Robertis erzählt in ihrem Generationenroman die Geschichte Pajaritas, ihrer Tochter Eva sowie ihrer Enkelin Salomé. Es ist die Geschichte von drei starken Frauen und zugleich die Geschichte Uruguays im 20. Jahrhundert.

Während auf privater Ebene vor allem das teils schwierige Verhältnis der Hauptfiguren zu Männern im Vordergrund steht und auch Themen wie Vergewaltigung und Transsexualität behandelt werden, überzeugt der Roman auch durch die Schilderungen der politischen Ereignisse in Uruguay, welches sich aufgrund der fortschrittlichen Politik während des Battlismo zur vielgerühmten "Schweiz Südamerikas" entwickelt hat, ehe Weltkrieg und Wirtschaftskrise zu politischer Instabilität, der Gründung der linken Stadtguerilla der Tupamaros und schließlich zur Militärdiktatur führten.

Auch wenn De Robertis Fabulierkunst nicht ganz an jene der bekannteren südamerikanischen Autoren heranreicht, verwebt sie gekonnt Privates mit Politisch-Historischem und gelingt es ihr, ein fesselndes, teilweise poetisches Stimmungsbild der Gesellschaft Uruguays zu schaffen und so dem Leser den Blick für das Land am Rio de la Plata zu öffnen.

Leda leaves Italy to travel to Argentina to live with her new husband Dante but when she arrives she learns he has died. Unable to go home she does her best to make a living sewing for others but she wants to play the violin. Tango is the rage in Argentina and as she listens to it she learns to play it. She then takes bold action to dress and act as a man so she can live by playing the tango. Her life becomes very different after that.

I love the tango. I liked how this is a story of more than Leda. It gives the history of tango and how it changed through the years. Ms. DeRobertis has captured the flavor of the time and the dance that I felt I was back in Argentina listening as the tango was played in the courtyards while dancing it myself. Showing the precariousness of Leda's life as a man, how carefully she has to guard herself, and how she eventually takes over that life was fascinating to watch especially when things go south for her but she does pick herself up and goes on. The characterization is wonderful to watch as Leda goes from a girl of her times to a man to make a living and to protect herself.

This book was so good that I cannot wait to read more of Ms. DeRobertis. Fortunately I just picked up her newest book

I've struggled with how to write this review. Am I writing it for those who might read it? Am I writing it for those who have already read it and seek to compare responses? It occurred to me I'm writing it for the one person who might actually read it. Now that my audience is clear, I will say I looked forward to reading this and ended up quite disappointed. Ultimately, it reminded me of the wife of a guy I used to work with. She wrote harlequin romances. (I mean that generically, like people use "kleenex" when they mean facial tissue of whatever manufacturer that seemed handy at the time.) In any event, my co-worker and his wife would go off to a new city, often a foreign one, stay long enough to pick up some local flavor, a detail of two about actual stuff in the city, and then come back home and she would write a totally fictitious romance novel with what they learned on the trip as a backdrop. Anyone who had never been to the particular city used in the book, would ever know if what details were provided were true or not. In this book's case, I ask: Is it true all people in Uruguay drink mate like it's holy communion and when they're not drinking mate, they're passing a whiskey flask around but without the same reverence? Never having been to Uruguay, I don't know, but I suspect I might know the answer. Also, in a city that's a major Atlantic ocean seaport, do people really have to travel for hours to find a beach in order to look out and see the vast waters before them? I also suspect I know the answer to that. But, despite never having been to Uruguay, I have been around human relationships for a long time, and I have yet to see a relationship that...oh, never mind. Let's just say the author has a very, very different value system than I do about intimate relationships, and I'm not talking about sexuality, I'm talking about obligations to those who have provided long-term love and support without complaint. No doubt, folks have and will continue to love this book. I just don't want to spend any time with them. I also doubt they care. It's clear the author doesn't.

I've read both of de Robertis' previous novels, The Invisible Mountain and Perla. I adored them both. These tales of dictatorships and strong, decisive women have stuck in my heart for years now. I was disappointed that I did not enjoy The Gods of Tango the same way. I think primarily, it was a case of my expectations being too high – this was still a good book, and dealt with a theme I find interesting (namely, women in history refusing to comply with the norms forced on them by virtue of their sex)… it just didn't meet the dizzying heights of the others.

So. This novel tells the story of Dante, who starts out as Leda, a seventeen-year-old widow who's just travelled across the seas from small-town Italy to Buenos Aires to be with her cousin-husband, only to discover he'd been shot dead at a protest just before her arrival. This poses a problem, since for a single, working-class woman in 1910s Buenos Aires, there is no way to keep oneself afloat besides prostitution, a fate Leda naturally wishes to avoid.

So she reinvents herself. She takes a violin she brought over from Italy and her husband's clothes, and becomes Dante. Through persistence and a highly fortunate prodigious talent for the violin, she joins a tango orquesta and earns a living as a professional musician. She quickly adjusts to the masculine world, one of boozing, smoking and whoring. She finds other women alluring, irresistible, but is distressed by her inability to truly be intimate with them, seeing as she can't ever risk her secret being exposed. At last, she meets another woman, one who found a different way of transgressing those feminine gender norms, and they share a happily ever after together.

Put like that, I very much enjoyed this story. On the other hand, the plot moved very slowly (and the entire first half held nothing that you didn't already know from the blurb, which seemed like a poor choice on the publisher's part) and the characters were less than strongly portrayed. At times I felt like the author got too caught up in her beautiful melodic prose (and really, it is lovely) and forgot to ensure the plot was rock-solid. There were a couple of sections where she switched to the point of view of another character, not Leda/Dante, when that wasn't really necessary. There was a fairly prominent subplot that ultimately proved pointless (all we learned was that sometimes girls are raped by their fathers… was that necessary?). The ending seemed to move a bit too quickly, and be a bit too neat. I felt that Leda/Dante herself was a bit of a cipher, someone who adapted her entire being to her circumstances rather than having a strong core identity of her own… which was, perhaps, the point, but I found it somewhat unsatisfying.

Overall, I'd call this a worthwhile read if the themes or setting particularly interest you, but the story itself seems a bit on the weak side. A solid three-star book. (Jun 2018)

I'm not even sure I can write a review that does justice to the brilliance of this book, but I'll do my best. Cantoras – a word which means ”female singers”, but is also older slang for same-sex attracted women – tells the story of five lesbian women living under the Uruguayan dictatorship. Wanting to escape the suffocating surveillance of the city, the women go out to a remote town on the Atlantic coast – Cabo Polonio, where they can be their true selves amidst the waves, rocks and sand dunes.

The characters are all really strong and gripping, forming an excellent ensemble cast. From the beginning, we have Romina, a left-wing Jew who's been arrested and tortured for past involvement in communist activity; Flaca, a third-generation butcher who broke Romina's heart by hooking up with someone else while Romina was imprisoned; Anita “La Venus”, a frustrated housewife and Flaca's new lover; the quietly enigmatic Melena; and the youngest of them all, sixteen-year-old Paz. As the novel unfolds over a number of years, you become swept up in the stories of these women's lives and loves. There are victories, and there are awful tragedies, with the book as a whole concluding in an uplifting if bittersweet kind of way.

I really enjoyed how, even when the characters came in conflict with each other, all their perspectives came across as equally understandable and sympathetic. You can see why Anita would leave Flaca for the exciting, vibrant singer Ariella, but you can also feel Flaca's heartbreak at being left. Similarly, when Romina ends her passionless relationship with Melena for the Paraguayan artist Diana, you can understand that too… and although that results in tragedy for Melena, it's hard to agree with Flaca that Romina made the wrong decision for herself, you know? It's also wonderful to see how their friendships endure and mature over time, that their bonds run much deeper than whatever fallings-out they have in the short term.

But along with reading about these wonderful characters, reading Cantoras also has you reading about Uruguay, and an extremely dark, violent period in its history. The fear of “el proceso”, the torture meted out against left-wing opponents of the regime, is palpable in this book, as is the rage and indignation of characters like Romina who've endured it. In this Cantoras shares something in common with de Robertis' early books, and especially Perla, which talked about the cruelty of the Argentine dictatorship on the other side of the Río de la Plata. There's a part where soldiers descend on Cabo Polonio and take over the lighthouse, and you can really feel the women's frustration at having their “safe space” taken away from them.

But Cantoras also makes the point that it wasn't just the dictatorship grinding gay people down; it was much of traditional Uruguayan society, under the influence of the Catholic church and patriarchal value systems. There's a grim flashback to a gay conversion clinic in Buenos Aires, and there are also many references to the “esposas”, the handcuffs, which supposedly bound women to the role society demanded of them. Girls having to clean up after their brothers, so their brothers could enjoy the free time; how even the communists had women thanklessly doing all the food prep and cleaning; how women were expected to find husbands, and how profoundly weird you'd be – to the point of attracting suspicion from the regime – if you opted not to marry. But this, too, changes over the course of the book. By the last chapter, same-sex marriage is legal in Uruguay, Paz has long been running a gay bar in Montevideo, and Cabo Polonio has become a tourist attraction for those interested in Uruguay's gay history. The women do joke a bit about how “women getting married” is a concept that seemed an absurdity in their youth, and wistfully lament how the next generation think the word cantoras is amusingly quaint, seeing as they can now openly describe themselves as lesbianas or bisexuales. They're wistful, but overall they have to be pleased that young women who love women don't know the fear that they used to.

So, to cut a long story short: read this book!! Great characters, an interesting time and place to be set in, Carolina de Robertis’ standard beautiful writing, and a pageturningly brisk pace.

As far as I'm concerned, this is a perfect book. It tells the story of three (or four) generations of the one Uruguayan family, and in particular three women: Pajarita, her daughter Eva, and her daughter Salomé. It's very left-wing, with most of the characters having leftist sympathies of some description (but not, unsurprisingly, wealthy Argentine doctors) and there's representation of transwomen and same-sex attraction.

I guess in large part I loved it because it talks about the struggles of working-class women in twentieth-century Uruguay, and the women here are defiant and bold and determined to define their own lives. They do suffer, but they bounce back. It is frustrating, as a reader, when injustices happen that are never really avenged, but it's also satisfying to see these characters moving on with their lives and not, for the most part, just being crushed.

The book ends on a sad note, but for me it was really touching, and I even started crying about five pages from the end. I really recommend this book, particularly for anyone interested in South America and its history – and especially if you've been to Montevideo or Buenos Aires, because even though I haven't been to either place for long it evoked them very well – gazing out at the endless blue of the Río de la Plata from La Rambla in Montevideo, or the stark contrast between the Buenos Aires neighbourhoods of San Telmo and Recoleta. Its depiction of Rio de Janeiro is probably similar, although that one I can't say.

A parting note though – even though it was definitely worth it, trying to get a copy of this book was really damn hard (although, as I discovered, not as hard as trying to get a copy of de Robertis' second book, Perla!). I prefer not to buy paper copies of books because then I have to find room for them in my overly-cluttered house and they're usually much more expensive... but getting an electronic copy was a nightmare. For some reason, not only has the publisher decided it has to be absurdly expensive ($12!) but it's also decided to put geolocks on it, such that most ebook sellers won't sell it to Australians. Eventually though, I found that I could buy it from Diesel eBooks, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I'm not really sure why Random House is so intensely determined to prevent people from buying their books, but uh... yeah. That was by far the worst part of this book. Get your act together, Random House.

This was a truly devastating, powerful book, set in Buenos Aires at the dawn of the twenty-first century. It's also, at times, a little too pretentious; I had to roll my eyes more than once at some excessively florid piece of description. But when you sweep aside the pseudo-philosophical cruft, what's left is brilliant. It has elements of a horror story, with a ghostly visitor arriving at Perla's home and showing her (or the reader at least) something of the nightmare of the torture chambers of the military regime. I honestly cried about the fate of this ghost and his love, Gloria; I was also relieved that Perla's own ending was what it was, because I don't think I could have taken much more tragedy.

So. This is clearly a novel that deals with the aftermath of Argentina's military dictatorship, and in particular with those people who were taken from their "subversive" parents (who, of course, were killed) as babies and awarded to various members of the regime. Reaching adulthood, though, she gravitates to the "subversive" type, with her boyfriend of four years (Gabriel) being a researcher into the desaparecidos seven years her senior. The inequality of this relationship made me suspicious that he might only be with her because he thinks she'll be useful for his research (especially once it was revealed what their fight on that Uruguayan beach was about), but happily he turned out to be genuine, because like I said, I couldn't have taken much more tragedy. Everything in Perla's life was already so miserable that I really wanted him to be a good guy. The "big question" in the novel is about identity, and what it is that makes you who you are. At times the author pushes this idea that it's something genetic or inborn; at other times she acknowledges that your life experiences make you. In the end, the novel doesn't really answer its own question, just leaving it open.

The other thing about this novel is how beautifully it evokes Buenos Aires. I fell asleep on Friday night after reading the first four chapters and I dreamed about Buenos Aires. I remember commenting on Carolina de Robertis's wonderful depictions of place in The Invisible Mountain, and it's the same here. Of course there's a kind of contradiction between the romanticised modern city and the dark past whose presence still lingers, but I still really liked it.

Four stars then, because much as I loved this book, I can't bring myself to give five stars to something with such pretentious tangents. I do think her previous book was just a bit better; more happened, for a start, so there was less space for pretension. Still, once you've read that (and I found it way easier to get access to, anyway – I had to resort to buying Perla in paperback!), this is an adequate follow-up. Here's hoping Carolina de Robertis has a third book out before too long.

Ein Epos wie die großen Ströme Südamerikas: verschlungen, mitreißend, magisch

Fesselnd und voller poetischer Kraft erzählt Caroline De Robertis die Geschichte dreier Generationen von Frauen in Montevideo. Drei Frauen, wie sie unterschiedlicher nicht sein können. Drei Frauen mit einem unbändigen Drang zu einem selbstbestimmten Leben - gegen alle Widerstände. Drei Frauen, die für die Geschichte Südamerikas im 20. Jahrhundert stehen.

I love this author - her books are engrossing, always teach me something, and her writing is gorgeous. This book wavered between 4 and 4.5 stars for me. It's the story of a young woman who arrives in Buenos Aires Argentina in 1910 to begin life with her new husband only to learn upon arrival that he had been killed in a human rights demonstration. Instead of focusing on returning home to Italy, she falls in love with the tango and begins identifying herself as a man in order to play the music that opens her heart.

The story line was slow to start, but I'm glad I persevered as it became more interesting as Dante began playing music and joining a band. This is the story of following dreams,acting out of courage rather than fear, gender fluidity, music, and the culture of the salons of Buenos Aires in the early 1900s.

As historical fiction, The Gods of Tango is an interesting subject with a solid execution. It was well paced and without any sections that I felt a need to skim.

For most of the book, Dante's character is defined by his relationships to other people, and considering the dangerous position that Dante occupied in early 20th century Argentinian society, it is understandable the he would avoid confronting those truths. The relationship with Rosa is lovely, and the freedom that Dante finds in it finally makes him a complete character.

"A cantora," Flaca said, flopping another fish into the clean pile, "is a woman who sings"......"A woman like us, Malena said." (Page 37)

This is a book you can really sink into and allow yourself to be completely engrossed by the story. I knew little about Uruguay in the late 70s but it was another brutal dictatorship in South America, the second I've read about this year. This story highlights the horrors of being a queer woman at this time. Not only was the government against you but so were a great number of the populace. It wasn't something easily admitted to, so when five lesbian women somehow find each other and gather together enough money to purchase a shack on a squirt of land on the Atlantic coast where they have the freedom to be themselves.....well, it just was so uncommon an idea that they managed to pull it off.

The book details their individual lives and I came to admire their tenacity and ability to create a loving family, complete with all the warts that may be found in any family, but fiercely loyal. The shack on the Atlantic coast provided a warm respite from the horrors of the dictatorship in Montevideo, the capital city where they all got their start. I really enjoyed my time with Paz, La Venus, Romina, Flaca and Malena.

Beautifully written, historical fiction at its best, and highly recommended.½