A taut, lyrical portrait of four people thrown together on a single
day in rural Argentina
The Wind That Lays Waste begins in the great pause before a storm.
Reverend Pearson is evangelizing across the Argentinian countryside with
Leni, his teenage daughter, when their car breaks down. This act of God
or fate leads them to the workshop and home of an aging mechanic called
Gringo Brauer and a young boy named Tapioca.
As a long day passes, curiosity and intrigue transform into an
unexpected intimacy between four people: one man who believes deeply in
God, morality, and his own righteousness, and another whose life
experiences have only entrenched his moral relativism and mild apathy; a
quietly earnest and idealistic mechanic's assistant, and a restless,
skeptical preacher's daughter. As tensions between these characters ebb
and flow, beliefs are questioned and allegiances are tested, until
finally the growing storm breaks over the plains.
Selva Almada's exquisitely crafted debut, with its limpid and confident
prose, is profound and poetic, a tactile experience of the mountain, the
sun, the squat trees, the broken cars, the sweat-stained shirts, and the
destroyed lives. The Wind That Lays Waste is a philosophical,
beautiful, and powerfully distinctive novel that marks the arrival in
English of an author whose talent and poise are undeniable.
