Thursday Night Widows by Claudia Piñeiro @claudiapineiro @bitterlemonpub @RandomTTours #ThursdayNightWidows

Thursday Night Widows by Claudia Piñeiro was published on July 9th 2009 by Bitter Lemon Press. My thanks to the publisher for the review copy and Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for inviting me on to the blog tour. 

"An agile novel written in a language perfectly pitched for the subject matter, a ruthless dissection of a fast decaying society”—José Saramago 

 

Three bodies lie at the bottom of a swimming pool in a gated country estate near Buenos Aires. It's Thursday night at the magnificent Scaglia house. Behind the locked gates, shielded from the crime, poverty and filth of the people on the streets, the Scaglias and their friends hide lives of infidelity, alcoholism, and abusive marriage. Claudia Piñeiro’s novel eerily foreshadowed a criminal case that generated a scandal in the Argentine media. But this is more than a story about crime. The suspense is a by-product of Piñeiro's hand at crafting a psychological portrait of a professional class that lives beyond its means and leads secret lives of deadly stress and despair. It takes place during the post 9/11 economic melt-down in Argentina but it’s a universal story that will resonate among credit-crunched readers of today. 

 

Production is expected in 2009 of the film of Thursday Night Widows, by Argentine new wave and award winning director Marcelo Piñeyro. 

 

“A razor-sharp psychological and social portrait not only of Argentina, but of the affluent Western world as a whole.”—Rosa Montero 

 

My Thoughts:

Thursday Night Widows is translated by Miranda France. Set in Argentina in the early 2000's it tells the story of a gated community just outside Buenos Aires. It would appear that the people on the estate are living lives of luxury and hedonism instead of squalor just on their doorsteps.

The people on the estate have their fair share of problems though and not even the finer things in life can keep those problems at bay. So when three of the men are found dead in the pool after the Thursday night card games, the mystery surrounds what on earth has happened to them and who is responsible. The story is told mainly by one of the other residents of the complex and tells of the years leading up to the fateful night. 

 

This is also a story of  the poor economy and the living beyond ones means. A social commentary and a story of class, class divides and also the perception of wealth. I found this to be a fascinating exploration of all of those things about a country I know little about. 

 

There is dark humour here and I was intrigued by the authors writing style. This is more than just a mystery. Of course we find out what happened to the men but more importantly why and there is so much more to this story than that. 

 

I found the short sharp chapter particularly engaging and helped with pace. I would be fascinated to read more translated works by this author in the future. 

 

About the Author:

The Author 

Claudia Piñeiro was a journalist, playwright and television scriptwriter and in 1992 won the prestigious Pléyade journalism award. She has more recently turned to fiction and is the author of literary crime novels that are all bestsellers in Latin America and have been translated into four languages. This novel won the Clarin Prize for fiction and is her first title to be available in English. 

 

The Translator 

Miranda France wrote Bad Times in Buenos Aires which in essay form won the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize in The Spectator magazine. A book by the same title was published in 1998 and met with great critical acclaim. The New York Times described it as 'a remarkable achievement' and the Sunday Times as 'an outstanding book'. 

 

Please do also have a look at the other stops on the blog tour.