{"id":10953,"date":"2024-05-08T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10953"},"modified":"2024-05-07T16:31:15","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T20:31:15","slug":"rodolfo-walshs-last-case-by-elsa-drucaroff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10953","title":{"rendered":"Rodolfo Walsh’s Last Case by Elsa Drucaroff"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Weary of US politics? How about a peek at the way other countries handle political disputes? Argentina, for example. In this historical \u201ctrue crime\u201d novel by Argentine novelist and literature professor Elsa Drucaroff, translated from the Spanish by Slava Faybysh, fact and fiction overlap, reinforce, and illuminate each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In real life, as in the novel, Rodolfo Walsh was a well-known Argentinian writer of detective fiction and an investigative journalist. His career started in the politically tumultuous 1950s and continued for the two succeeding decades. He joined a militant underground group, the Montoneros, allied with the Peronists (\u201cDon\u2019t Cry for Me, Argentina\u201d\u2014that Peron family). The Montoneros appointed him their director of intelligence, and he was adept at ferreting out information to aid their cause. These activities and the militance of his daughter Maria Victoria (Vicki) made them regime targets. Walsh was eventually assassinated in 1977, the day after publishing his famously scathing Open Letter from a Writer to the Military Junta, criticizing its economic policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drucaroff weaves her novel around these facts and a compelling \u201cwhat if?\u201d What if, using his skills as a writer of detective stories, Walsh investigated the disappearance of his 26-year-old daughter himself? She, along with four men, were involved in a shoot-out with army troops\u2014tanks and helicopter included\u2014but in Drucaroff\u2019s story, he is tantalized by differing reports of the number of bodies removed from the building and whether the woman involved was still alive when she was taken away. He has to track down the facts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can see why Walsh might want to shift his interest away from the Montoneros, who are prone to lengthy debates on Marxist principles (I hadn\u2019t heard the phrase \u201cdialectical materialism\u201d in, I don\u2019t know, decades?), and engage in a little practical action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s danger in the air, and Walsh and his key contacts go about their business in increasing peril. In politically fraught stories, peopled by spies and secret police, you can never be absolutely sure which side a character is on, and Drucaroff has some surprises in store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drucaroff writes in a particular style, providing limited visual description. To keep the story moving, she places greater reliance on the significance of interactions among characters and their dialog. And move it does. It\u2019s written in short segments\u2014sometimes only a page or two until the point of view changes. From the early political arguments, where the story stalls a bit, to its acceleration with her cinematic cutting back and forth, the pace soon hurtles toward its dramatic climax. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not a must-read, but an interesting and memorable look at another corner of the world we hear relatively little about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Weary of US politics? How about a peek at the way other countries handle political disputes? Argentina, for example. In this historical \u201ctrue crime\u201d novel by Argentine novelist and literature professor Elsa Drucaroff, translated from the Spanish by Slava Faybysh, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1335,366,261,268,126,32],"tags":[1675,2179,2180],"class_list":["post-10953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amateur-detective","category-drama","category-journalism","category-politics","category-reading-2","category-thriller","tag-argentina","tag-elsa-drucaroff","tag-rodolfo-walsh"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2QF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10955,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10953\/revisions\/10955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}