Meanwhile, Quity and Cleo become lovers, the Virgin inspires Cleo to write a cumbia opera, and the two plot their escape from El Poso. The Beast’s later murder creates a power vacuum filled by politically connected El Jefe, who is set on selling the slum for development, minus its inhabitants. While driving through town high on cocaine, Quity discovers a young woman who’s just been tortured by local mobster The Beast, “a human flame running a kind of epileptic race,” and puts the woman out of her misery with her. After Quity, a depressive atheist, meets Cleo, she receives a grant to write Cleo’s life story, and immerses herself in El Poso’s hardscrabble world. Cleo’s visions expose the motivations of the rich, poor, police, media, thieves, and gangs in the brutal Argentinian slum of El Poso, where she lives.
Charco, $15.95 trade paper (150p) ISBN 978-1-999Ĭámara’s stunning tour de force (after the Booker International–shortlisted The Adventures of China Iron) follows Cleo, a trans ex-prostitute, known as the “transvestite saint” for her visions of Virgin Mary, through accounts from Quity, a down-and-out journalist hoping for redemption.
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