Suzanne Jill Levine Book order (chronological)

Finally back in print, Manuel Puig's celebrated first novel is a startling anatomy of a small town in thrall to its own petty lusts, betrayals, scandals, thefts, and gossip--but most of all, to the movies. Centering around a boy named Toto, privy to the town's secrets and always eager to fill in the ugly or upsetting moments of his childhood with Hollywood-inspired fantasy, Betrayed by Rita Hayworth is a symphony of disappointed, comic, bitter, and bawdy voices, all hemmed in by life's refusal to behave like the silver screen, and is perhaps the funniest and most honest coming-of-age story of its time.

Cortazar's stories are like small time pieces, where each polished part moves relentlessly on its own particular path, exercising a crucial and perpetual influence on the mechanism as a whole. Moments jerk forward and retract, reflect and refract: an island at noon from an aeroplane - an aeroplane at noon from an island; the living deceiving the dying and also themselves, about death; fatality by fire in an ancient Roman arena and in a modern city apartment. It is a world that is constantly shifting, upsetting our balance and our peace of mind, a world outside of time that provokes a fascination bordering on terror. Cortazar is the master of the form and this celebrated collection houses some of his finest work.