Heartbreak Tango (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Manuel Puig
- First Published: 1969
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: Primarily 1937-1939, 1949, and 1968
- Setting: Coronel Vallejos, a mythical town in Argentina, and Buenos Aires
- Principal Characters: Juan Carlos Etchepare, Leonor Saldívar de Etchepare, Celina Etchepare, Nelida Enriqueta Fernández (Nené), Donato José Massa, Francisco Catalino Páez, María Mabel Sáenz, Antonia Josefa Ramírez (Big Fanny), Elsa DiCarlo
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction
- Subjects: 1960’s, Sex or sexuality, 1940’s, 1930’s, Argentina or Argentineans, Popular culture, Mass media, Romanticism, Tuberculosis
- Locales: Argentina
The Novel
Although Heartbreak Tango may be classified as a realistic novel for its representation of an ordinary, familiar reality, it is not at all traditional in the development of its narrative. The portrayal of Juan Carlos Etchepare, dead from tuberculosis as the story begins, is effected primarily through his letters and through the testimonies of the other characters of the novel. The interviews, letters, newspaper reports, descriptions of photo albums, objective eyewitness accounts, and stream-of-consciousness passages included in the narrative present Juan Carlos...
[The entire page is 2158 words long]
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