The adventure of the busts of Eva Perón /

English-language audiences were first introduced to Gamerro with The Islands (2012), a surreal and hilarious yet deeply serious literary examination of the Falkland Islands War. His latest work to appear in translation expands upon that novel's careening farce as well as its acerbic commentary with a full-bore lampooning of the Argentinean national fixation upon Eva Perón. Protagonist Marroné is head of procurement for a major construction company; his boss, the malign magnate Fausto Tamerlán, who also appeared in The Islands, has been kidnapped by revolutionaries, who have severed the infamous index finger he used to probe job candidates. Their curious demand: 92 busts of the former First Lady, to be placed in all of the company's offices. A loyal corporate acolyte and reader of business self-help books, Marroné sees an opportunity for advancement, but his errant quest to procure the statues leads him through the slums of Buenos Aires and the model suburb of Ciudad Evita as well as a memorably Evita-themed brothel, and his capitalist convictions crumble like cheap plaster. To use the lionized First Lady as a vehicle for biting burlesque is a daring move, of course, made no less provocative by the odd Don Quixote allusion, or the fact that Gamerro is ultimately more interested in sending up overreverent revolutionaries and unscrupulous corporate climbers than he is in Perón herself. But diligent readers seeking funny and serious modernist satire will find boldness is but one of this increasingly important writer's many talents.--Driscoll, Brendan Copyright 2015 Booklist

This clever comic novel about a conventional Argentinian businessman caught up in guerilla politics is buoyantly relentless in its biting satire. Argentine novelist and translator Gamerro (The Islands, 2012, etc.) uses the context of early 1970s Peronist political turmoil for his farce, originally published in Spanish in 2004. Our protagonist is Marron, a placid middle manager devoted to inspirational business texts such as Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends Influence People. When Marron's CEO is kidnapped by a guerilla groupfrustrating Marron's plans to make a pitch for a promotionhis severed finger is delivered by mail to his flustered staff. Then Marron, by now established as a deeply conventional and repressed family man, is himself abducted by the rebels and imprisoned in a plaster factorythe one where they make the eponymous busts of Eva Pern. Gamerro makes full use of his contradiction-rich setting, including bourgeois schoolboys appropriating fierce rebel names and Marron's dogged efforts to maintain his plans for corporate advancement in the guerilla hideout. In one hilarious passage, Marron considers Shakespeare's plays from the perspective of how well they illustrate business management principles. In another, he contemplates Evita as a masterpiece of image-creation: "Eva Pern was a born winner, a self-made woman who had created a productherselfthat millions in Argentina and around the world had bought and consumed." Marron's persistently market-driven constructions are some of the funniest things in the book, especially when other factors suggest his flirtation with rebel leadership could turn his life around. But this seesawing makes him a very funny hero. Though the book could use a few more characters as richly drawn as Marron, he deserves the spotlight as a bumbling Everyman caught up in a struggle between political change and his own selfishness. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.