The Woman from Uruguay Review

From acclaimed Argentine author Pedro Mairal and Man Booker International-winning translator Jennifer Croft, the unforgettable story of two would-be lovers over the course of a single day.

Lucas Pereyra, an unemployed writer in his forties, embarks on a day trip from Buenos Aires to Montevideo to pick up fifteen thousand dollars in cash. An advance due to him on his upcoming novel, the small fortune might mean the solution to his problems, most importantly the tension he has with his wife. While she spends her days at work and her nights out on the town-with a lover, perhaps, he doesn't know for sure-Lucas is stuck at home all day staring at the blank page, caring for his son Maiko and fantasizing about the one thing that keeps him going: the woman from Uruguay whom he met at a conference and has been longing to see ever since.

But that woman, Magalí Guerra Zabala, is a free spirit with her own relationship troubles, and the day they spend together in this beautiful city on the beach winds up being nothing like Lucas predicted. The constantly surprising, moving story of this dramatically transformative day in their lives, The Woman from Uruguay is both a gripping narrative and a tender, thought-provoking exploration of the nature of relationships. An international bestseller published in fourteen countries, it is the masterpiece of one of the most original voices in Latin American literature today.

General Impressions

I started 'The Woman from Uruguay' looking for a change of genres and a chance to breathe between larger books after liking the synopsis. It's been a while since I've read a Spanish translated work and this might be my first Argentinian author, so I was looking forward to broadening my horizons as well.

The first thing I noticed was the writing, and how beautiful it was, even beyond my highest expectations. It was so easy to immerse myself in it and effortlessly learn more about South American culture, the literature, the history and the present-day concerns about the economy and how that affects these characters. The hardest part for me was giving a damn about the main character, Pereyra. If this hadn't been such a short book I would have DNF'ed it no matter how well written.

By the time I read a third of the book, I was already DONE with this man: this bougie wannabe tortured soul who resents his wife going through his emails when he IS cheating on her with a woman decades younger in order to pretend he is not unhappy with his life. That is bad enough but the ick factor went up by a thousand with the way this man obsesses with his lover's genital piercing.

The more I went on, the less I could ignore the sensation that I had read this book a dozen times before. Male author self-projects into the tortured protagonists? Check. Struggles with getting older? Check. Getting fatter? Not feeling successful enough? Drooling over twenty-year-old girls? Expecting a standing ovation for not yet having cheated on their partners and then creating a myriad of excuses when they eventually do cheat to try to convince themselves that they are not like every other cheater? Check! Check! Check! Check! Jesus, this middle-age crisis sure keeps selling!!

And while he is blaming all his unfaithfulness and unhappiness on how he and the wife don't have sex against the wall as they used to before, she is busy being the only breadwinner of the house and killing herself supporting their entire family and HIM.

And then...this book, this character and my opinion of it took a huge turn. I ended up not only loving it but all it stood for. Suddenly this was not a book about an adulterer wanting pity and adulation but of a man searching for meaning in all the wrong places in order to not look at himself.

I'm not saying that the last chapter erases everything that had been done before but it shows a character that I thought I would never respect, change into someone I easily sympathised with.

Conclusions

This is not a book about something as trite as romantic love or about a mediocre man learning to be a decent husband and father. It's about someone who having been offered every opportunity in life still found himself being suffocated by societal and self-inflicted constraints that he had to examine and unlearn in order to become someone he was proud or at least content to be. He doesn't become the perfect specimen or find the ultimate happiness but he became someone that is not as egotistical and can be happy for others finding love and loving them as friends, family and fellow human beings.

Ultimately, for me, this was a book about growth and humanity and I loved reading it.

Thank you to Bloomsbury for gifting me this copy.

Rating: 4/5