Body Snatcher

Body Snatcher is a major literary event: the masterpiece of Uruguayan Juan Carlos Onetti, who has for decades been acknowledged throughout South America and Europe as a world-class writer of fiction. Relatively unknown in America, Onetti, with the English language publication of Body Snatcher, confirms his competitive preeminence among the great novelists of the Boom of Latin American fiction.Set in Santa María, an imaginary provincial town on the banks of the River Plate (reminiscent of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County), Body Snatcher a tragicomic novel of grotesque ideals and lost illusions, recounts two attempts at self-fulfillment, two Promethean stories by turns. Larsen, a boldly original pimp of weary whores, tries to establish the perfect brothel; passionate Julita, a mad widow, refuses to accept the death of her husband by taking his younger brother as her lover. In their sordid, self-righteous society, which pits stupidity and lust against honor and love, both characters are doomed for failure.