Tropical Night Falling by Manuel Puig (Simon & Schuster, 1991)
A lovely book, tender and sad, and completely engaging. Tropical Night Falling is Puig’s last book, finished shortly before his death in 1990.
TNF is a story about two octogenarian sisters, Luci and Nidia, Argentinians living in Rio de Janeiro. Most of the book is composed of their unadorned dialogue, which includes Luci’s relating to her sister the long and complicated story of her neighbor Silvia’s affair with an inconsiderate widower. Nidia befriends the handsome young night watchman from the neighboring building, a friendship that, despite Nidia’s good and generous intentions, ends by devastating her.
The novel is masterfully written, its complex and unorthodox narrative structure–dialogue, letters, police reports–brilliantly conceived and sustained. I was very moved by this book’s elegiac tone, and its deep sense of empathy and humanity. Perhaps reading it during this time of quarantine and estrangement made me particularly susceptible to its melancholy charm.
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