SOURCE: "Ghosts of Vietnam," in The Observer, November 22, 1987, p. 25.

In the following excerpt, Cunningham lauds the mix of myth and local color in The Dream of Heroes.

[A] brand of haunted American maleness preoccupies Adolfo Bioy Casares's The Dream of Heroes. Casares's people are residents of Buenos Aires, bar-flies, football fanatics, addicts of cards, booze and betting on the races, the kind of men who settle differences with bottles and knives, awesomely tangled in the values of gaucho and tango. Central among them is mechanic Emilio Gauna whose fancied horse comes good at Carnival time in 1927 and who treats his chums to a great binge during which there take place some very odd and only hazily recalled encounters with an intriguingly masked girl.

Gauna marries an actress, daughter of a sorcerer, and eases up on nights out with the lads. But he remains troubled by that strangely soured...