SOURCE: A review of The Lizard's Tail, in World Literature Today, Vol. 58, No. 2, Spring, 1984, p. 247.

In the following review, Hernández comments on Valenzuela's verbal wit, black humor, and the Argentine vision of magic realism in The Lizard's Tail.

Carlos Fuentes has hailed Luisa Valenzuela as "the heiress of Latin American fiction." That heritage includes the theme of the caudillo and the vision of magic realism, both of which attain new heights in the course of this novel. There is nothing unusual about this combination: both elements appeared in [Alejo] Carpentier's El recurso del método and in García Márquez's El otoño del patriarca—not to mention [Miguel Angel] Asturias's much earlier masterpiece, El señor Presidente. The major difference between Valenzuela's novel and the preceding ones is that The Lizard's Tail takes place in Argentina, the leader in civilization's battle against barbarie. But then...