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. ( )

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. ( )

Sempre la pessima usanza italiana di cambiare i titoli con altri che, come in questo caso non c'entrano con la storia. Il titolo originale è il nome della protagonista "Perla", una ragazza coi capelli NERI!!!!!
Comunque è un libro veramente bello. Molto ben descritto il percorso psicologico di Perla dalla negazione all'accettazione in tutte le sue sfumature e i suoi passaggi. ( )

Written in the South American tradition of magical realism. Beautiful and haunting. ( )

A very accomplished work - not a novel to be read, but rather a prose poem to be devoured - certainly not an easy read for the torture and pain described in poetic detail were shattering - yet the beauty and heroic strength of the main character kept the story from being impossible to get through - a story of history and murder and torture yet also of awakening and courage to face the truth and love -

This is a story to remember and one that sheds light on a terrifically dark time in Argentina's history - I loved De Robertis' other book, the Invisible Mountain, and found this to be a worthy successor - ( )