On Love and Death in Buenos Aires

Can you write about them?

One could reasonably ask how I can write an entire novel that takes place in Argentina, the characters of which are all Argentine, all of them speaking the kind of Spanish spoken only in Buenos Aires. I am, after all, a North American gringo, a native English-speaker who learned Spanish while an adult and has never lived for an extensive time in that city.

The novel, by the way, is titled Martin Shadow, and is being shopped around.

My answer begins with a recounting of my love of novels and the understanding I have of them and the people who write them. (I myself have written seven, all of which are available on order from bookstores and online.) No novel is ever a rote-recitation of the author’s own life occurrences. A few of those occurrences may be used in a particular novel, may even be the basis for much of the novel. But the finished piece is only a version of the occurrences, since fiction writing itself…all writing… is an imaginative adventure that presents a completely idiosyncratic version of events, unique as they may be to the writer’s heart. But it is never the only possible version. The writing is so dependent upon pure imagination that the author’s memories become just gestures showing the way. Art takes over the experiences, picks and chooses, fashions them into the elements needed for the novel, thus making the experiences ancillary to the novel itself.

The novel ends up on its own, separate and distinct finally from the writer’s personal history.

The actual events will remain in the author’s recollection, of course. Maybe essential to the author’s own peace of mind or conflicts. But they are not the novel that he or she is writing…although, of course, thank heavens the author has the temerity and talent to write down some version of the recollections. What matters most is the author’s pure imagination and how well she or he writes.  

So…Buenos Aires! My preparation for placing a novel in that city came from two extended studies I’ve made. One of them is the Spanish language itself, which I learned to speak as an adult. Most of my instructors in that endeavor (principally Sonia Fava at Casa Hispana in San Francisco) have been Argentines, so that I’ve also become accustomed to the very unique way that porteños, as the citizens of Buenos Aires are called, speak the language. It is a unique adventure, I can tell you.

Second, in 1998 I watched Nora Olivera dance Argentine tango. I had never seen such a dance in my life and was smitten by it right away. I’ve been studying tango with Nora ever since, and although she speaks fine English, our own conversations are always in porteño Spanish. These two endeavors have been strengthened by my several visits to Buenos Aires itself.

My late love, writer and storyteller Beatrice Bowles, went there with me frequently to study tango with a few masters. During that time, Bea and I walked through all manner of porteño neighborhoods, looking around and talking with people. Cafes, vegetable stores, cemeteries, the famous confiterías, bus stops, museums, churches, parks…all the while conversing with the people we were meeting. Almost all of them were amazed that we wanted to talk, and could do so in their language.

Bea herself became an accomplished dancer of tango. She read large sections of Martín Shadow as I was composing them and her advice added very much to what I was trying to do. She breathed specific authenticities into the character and experiences of Nico’s great love, Adonia Faustino. These were someone else’s memories, from her own life, aiding my art, a gift kindly offered.

It's possible Martín Shadow would have been more “authentic” had it been written by a porteño. But I think not.

Photo: Kevin Carrel Footer

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