SOURCE: Clark, Stella T. “The Novel as Cultural Interpreter: The Case of ‘Las Poquianchis’ in Mexico.” North Dakota Quarterly 58, no. 4 (fall 1990): 205-14.

In the following essay, Clark contends that Ibargüengoitia's fictionalized version of the “Los Poquianchis” case found in The Dead Girls is more successful than the documentary account written by Elisa Robledo.

In a foreword to Yo, La Poquianchis, an account of a notorious crime case headlined during the early 1960s in Mexico, Elisa Robledo, the author/interviewer, states:

Las Poquianchis are a real part of our times. They constitute a revealing and extreme case, a rich source for searching within our contradictory nature. The word “people” acquires in their case a very meaningful resonance, a vivid manner of understanding that, removed from true fact, would remain only as obscure legend.

(My translation)

In an attempt to explain the case of three madams accused of some...