SOURCE: "Valenzuela's Cat-O-Nine-Deaths," in Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 6, No. 3, Fall, 1986, pp. 39-47.

In the following essay, Fores examines diverse ways language, or the word, performs in Cat-O-Nine-Deaths.

The importance of Cat-O-Nine-Deaths (El gato eficaz) does not rely on setting, theme, or even characters, but on the function of the word, the process that man imposes on language as a communicant. The protagonist of the future is the word; it is the only character that counts in all reality: "I am a trap made of paper and mere printed letters."

The novel itself has no plot. If fragments of a story of a mysterious dark love, or segments of a cripple bitterly descending "a cement stairway" could be called a plot, then there is one. Also, unlike most traditional novels, Valenzuela's includes no characters in Cat-O-Nine-Deaths. The protagonist, who at times is a woman, changes always, in a...