The Woman from Uruguay, by Pedro Mairal, tr. Jenny Croft

A taut, quick, quasi thriller. You kind of know what’s coming, yet you’re continuously surprised. The narrator is in many ways cliché (a jealous husband pursuing an affair with a younger woman), and yet somehow compelling. A lot of reviewers on goodreads are like UGH this is why I don’t read books by MEN and I get it, but also, the narrator isn’t supposed to be likable, calm down everyone. He’s having a midlife crisis and being ridiculous, that’s the point. It’s the prose that makes this work (in Ienny Croft’s phenomenal translation) — it’s excellent. Nimble, sexy, and just right for the melodramatic, self-aggrandizing and self-pitying man in search of thrills.