Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. Translated by Toby Talbot. Luisa Valenzuela is one of the most recognized Latin American writers in the U.S. She has been featured in Time alongside García Márquez and Vargas Llosa. This novel with the characteristics of a thriller is set in New York among Argentine exiles; a man emerges from a building, a revolver in his pocket. Upstairs, in her apartment, alone, lies a woman, an actress the man met for the first time that evening. She is dead; the man is an Argentine novelist adrift in New York, trying desperately to write. Following in Dostoyevsky's footsteps, Valenzuela's dark story draws a fine line between creativity and insanity. It shows a penetrating portrait of the sub-city, complete with its seductive perversity.