“Filled with original touches and surprising twists and turns, the book is a both a gloomy but playful metaphor for Argentina’s recent history, delving into themes such as the continually thwarted aspirations of the middle classes, corruption and patriarchal ideals, and also an exhilarating but weird existential road trip.” (Kit Maude)
In Buenos Aires, in the early 1990s, Lobo (Wolf) and Estela Durán have just had a baby and all the indications are that they will lead a typical middle class family life. One day Lobo, a methodical and obsessive man, returns from work to find that Estela has left him, taking their son Ivan. He gives up everything and hires a detective who soon turns out to be a failed gambler full of nostalgia and inner turmoil. From this moment on, the book becomes a mixture of detective story and frenetic road novel.
A book which on the one hand explores, through an original detective story, the effects on one family of Argentina's most tragic two decades, the 1970s and the 1990s, and on the other tackles one of the universal themes least explored in contemporary literature: the impossible relationship between a son and his father.