No One Said a Word
No One Said a Word
2012
"L uz Goldman’s father is a former physicist who directs an investment project in New York for a crude complement of Argentinians who got rich during their country's last military dictatorship. And although this coming-of-age novel spans that dictatorship as well as Argentina's subsequent war over the Falkland Islands. Luz, whose monthly allowance from her father exceeds the expenditures of Argentina's ministers fit grate, is totally absorbed in the drug-ridden details of her evolving adolescent persona. The text's wide-eyed, short, and simple sentences effectively convey both Luz's alienation from the vapid adult world she must soon enter and the deep affection she feels toward the father she is about to lose. In her first novel, journalist Varsavsky (born in 1963 in Buenos Aires) has deftly created a stark and unsentimental heroine who may strike some readers as Holden Caulfield's female counterpart. Highty recommended."
Jack Shreve, Allegany Coll of Maryland, Cumberland, published in Library Journal
Editions
Excerpt
„Dad phoned from New York. He told me he'd be coming to Buenos Aires. It didn't cheer me up like other times. Dad said, "It's not for pleasure, this trip. My brother's having heart surgery. We don't want your grandmother to find out. When he gets in to Buenos Aires from Bogota he'll let you know which hotel he's staying in. And you can tell me." I felt anxious when I hung up. Dad sounded really worried. I felt sorry for him. For the first time ever I felt sorry for Dad. The thought of going through such a tough time with his brother seemed to weigh him down. Dad's wife wasn't coming with him. I was the only one in Buenos Aires who knew. ”
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6 noviembre, 2023
"Latin America is experiencing a remarkable resurgence of young novelists, a whole array of distinct, idiosyncratic and bold young talents. They are free of the old politics, and not interested in imitating the old models (no magic realist kitsch or trite exoticism here). Urban, modern, Argentine but also universal, Paula Varsaysky is very much in step with the best of her generation."
"With a sparseness that brings Hemingwayesque echoes and a minimalist emotional restraint, the narrator, Luz Goldman, skillfully guides us through the complexities of her own psyche, a steaming force that keeps the reader totally engaged till the touching end."
"The novel's toughness and irony surround a core of tenderness and loss, as if Luz were a kind of female Argentine Holden Caulfield."