As in Puig's previous experiments, [in "Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages"] things are not as simple as they first seem. The only way Mr. Ramirez can recover a sense of his own life is to plumb Larry's past and his fantasies. What Mr. Ramirez is really seeking is some key to his own subconscious. At first the self-serving Larry is reluctant to indulge his often exasperating patient except when humoring him appears to be expedient. Gradually, though, Larry becomes caught up in Mr. Ramirez's psychological game, and the two of them begin exploring a mélange of fantasy, sex, guilt and dreams, all the therapeutic stuff of everyday post-Freudian reality.

These strange conversations between an old man who has suppressed his memory and a young man who obeys only the law of self-gratification are sometimes funny, but in general Puig has chosen to investigate the...