SOURCE: A review of The Buenos Aires Affair, in Commonweal, Vol. 104, No. 13, June 24, 1977, pp. 412-14.

In the following review, Christ praises Puig's accomplishment in The Buenos Aires Affair, but complains that the English translation “frequently goes flat.”

In life, the myth of the prodigal son is an accepted guide to judging ultimate worth; so much so, that a famous feature in Esquire once advised the prospective college student to do poorly on his early assignments and then gradually improve in order to give his professor the moral satisfaction of witnessing a return to the ordered ways of study. In literature, though, we ruthlessly search for writers who are good to begin with and who stay good. We even ask that they improve and often lose interest when they don't. Consequently, we look for writers who first put their best foot forward and then walk the straight and narrow...