DON'T SHED YOUR TEARS FOR ANYONE WHO LIVES ON THESE STREETS

A fine ensemble of talented narrators enhances Argentinian Patricio Pron's clever, inventive second novel--one that may prove too clever and too inventive for many listeners. Set in the intersection of literature and politics, the narrative centers around the mysterious death of an attendee to a conference of Italian fascist writers in April 1945, just before the defeat of fascism in Europe. Different narrators take turns recalling (and contradicting each other about) those events in 1978, at the height of the Red Brigade terror in Italy. This is only one of the ironic counterpoints that form the fabric of this narrative. These voices remind us of Borges, Calvino, Coover, and others, but Pron stakes out a territory here that's all his own. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2020]