Snapshots: Marco Denevi
Argentine author Marco Denevi is largely unknown to English speaking readers. A respected novelist in his native Argentina, for some reason his work — other than two books — have been largely ignored by English language publishers, which is a shame. I learned about him through seeing a few Spanish language books on my friend’s father’s bookshelf. Curious, I sought him out but managed to find only two books in English translation — the short story collection The Redemption Of The Cannibal Woman and Other Stories and Secret Ceremony.
Cannibal is a wonderful collection of stories, four in total, one about a gay bartender/hustler who confesses to a fatal flirtation while giving the reader a glimpse of Buenos Aires nightlife; A brooding poet writers a letter to her lover complaining about the intellectual world; two sisters succumb to the charms of their downstairs neighbor who they never see but hear him playing tangos on his accordion; and finally, a chorus girl dreams of running off with a dashing man she sees in the audience. Each one of these stories are unique in their own way, well written tales that rank up there with some of the best short story writers. This little book is available, although I never, ever see it in the bookstores. I had to search for my copy online, which wasn’t easy, but I managed to eventually find it.
With only these four stories to go on, I sought out other books from Denevi and the only other one I was able to find was the novella Secret Ceremony, a story which begins as light as a fairy tale then suddenly becomes a dark, twisted psychological/gothic story concerning a prostitute who sees a young girl on the bus who reminds her of her dead daughter. The young girl essentially ‘adopts’ the prostitute as her ‘mother’ and tragedy ensues. When you read the first few pages, you don’t see it coming. An amazing story. And I love the hardcover/slipcase in which the book comes in, lending it its fairy tale/children’s book appearance. However, it is anything but. If you can find this, read this. It was also made into a film starring Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow, and Robert Mitchum in 1968, directed by Joseph Losey.
