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WORK TITLE: Gesell Dome
WORK NOTES: trans by Andrea G. Labinger
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1948
WEBSITE:
CITY: Villa Gissell
STATE:
COUNTRY: Argentina
NATIONALITY: Argentine
https://pen.org/guillermo-saccomanno
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1948, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Novelist and author of short stories. Formerly worked as advertising copywriter and as script writer for cartoons and films.
AWARDS:Premio Nacional de Literatura, 2000, for El buen dolor; Dashell Hammett Prize, 2008, for 77 and 2013, for Cámara Gesell; Premio Biblioteca Breve de Novela, Seix Barral, 2010, for El oficinista; Rodolfo Walsh Prize for nonfiction, for Un maestro.
WRITINGS
Also the author of the introduction to Cristian Alarcón’s Un mar de castillos peronistas: primeras crónicas desorganizadas, Marea Editorial (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 2013.
SIDELIGHTS
Argentine author Guillermo Saccomanno is known throughout the Spanish-speaking world for his hard-hitting novels and collections of short stories. His works include El oficinista, which won Barcelona-based publisher Seix Barral’s Premio Biblioteca Breve de Novela, and Un maestro: una historia de lucha, una lección de vida, which won the Rodolfo Walsh Prize for nonfiction (named for the Argentine investigative journalist who died while investigating the military junta that ruled the country at the time). He has been honored twice with the prestigious Dashiell Hammett Award for crime fiction, and Argentina presented him with its Premio Nacional de Literatura for El buen dolor. Other works include Partida de caza, Prohibido escupir sangre, Situación de peligro, Roberto y Eva: historia de un amor argentine, Bajo bandera, Animales domésticos, El viejo Gesell, La indiferencia del mundo, La lengua del malón, El amor argentine, El pibe, and Cámara Gesell—which, under the title Gesell Dome, became Saccomanno’s first book to be translated into English when it was released in 2016.
Saccomanno’s novel Gesell Dome is named after a twentieth-century psychologist’s invention—a one-way mirror that lets people be observed without their knowledge. In the book, the author takes an omniscient view of the crime and scandal that plague an Argentine resort town. “When the tourists leave and only the locals remain,” related a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “a tangle of outlandish corruption, violence, and dark histories are unveiled.” The author explores the lives of the inhabitants of the town, which include the descendants of former Nazis who had sought refuge in South America after the collapse of the Third Reich. The story centers on three brothers who struggle to control the passions of their fellow townspeople with mixed results. “Saccomanno,” stated a Kirkus Reviews contributor, “writes with dark lyricism of the shady dealmakers, old-school Nazis, youngsters `with their hormones raging,’ prostitutes, and other types whom you might expect to find in a grim place and a grim time.” While acknowledging Saccomanno’s portrayal of a “panoramic catalog of entertaining antisocial behavior,” Library Journal reviewer Jack Shreve found the narrative to be “tempered and redeemed by its humor and compassion.” “If you enjoy lyrical depictions of iniquity and a sprinkling of philosophy mixed in with your noir fiction, then you’ll like Gesell Dome,” remarked Michael Magras in a review in SF Gate. “Saccomanno writes midway through the novel, `The only way to show the wind is through its effect on things.’ In other words, you can’t reach conclusions about human behavior unless you know its origins.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2016, review of Gesell Dome.
Library Journal, September 15, 2016, Jack Shreve, review of Gesell Dome, p. 82.
Publishers Weekly May 16, 2016, review of Gesell Dome, p. 27.
World Literature Today, January-February, 2017, review of Gesell Dome, p. 87.
ONLINE
SF Gate, http://www.sfgate.com/ (December 9, 2016), Michael Magras, review of Gesell Dome.
Guillermo Saccomanno was born in Argentina in 1948. He is the author of numerous noir novels, both under his own name and using apseudonym, as well as film scripts and comic strips. Saccomanno is a frequent contributor to Página/12 and
Guillermo Saccomanno is the author of numerous novels and story collecitons, including El buen dolor, winner of the Premio Nacional de Literatura, and 77 and Gesell Dome, both of which won the Dashell Hammett Prize. He also received Seix Barral's Premio Biblioteca Breve de Novela for El oficinista and the Rodolfo Walsh Prize for nonfiction for Un maestro. Critics tend to compare his works to those of Balzac, Zola, Dos Passos, and Faulkner.
Guillermo Saccomanno is the author of numerous novels and story collections, including El buen dolor. He is the winner of the Premio Nacional de Literatura and a two-time Dashiell Hammett Prize recipient for 77 and Gesell Dome. He also received Seix Barral’s Premio Biblioteca Breve de Novela for El oficinista, and his book Un maestro won the Rodolfo Walsh Prize for nonfiction.
LC control no.: n 93041722
Descriptive conventions:
rda
LC classification: PQ7798.29.A264
Personal name heading:
Saccomanno, Guillermo
Variant(s): Saccomanno, Guillermo, 1948-
Birth date: 1948
Place of birth: Buenos Aires (Argentina)
Found in: La Colimba, 1992: cover (Guillermo Saccomanno)
LC data base 05-05-93 (hdg.: Saccomanno, Guillermo)
El viejo Gesell, 1994: t.p. (Guillermo Saccomanno) cover
flap (b. 1948, Buenos Aires)
Gesell Dome, 2016 ECIP data view (Guillermo Saccomanno was
born in Buenos Aires in 1948. Before becoming a
novelist, he worked as a copy writer in the advertising
industry and as a script writer for cartoons and other
films. Saccomanno is a prolific writer, with numerous
novels and short story collections to his credit. He has
won many literary awards, including the Premio Nacional
de Literatura, Seix Barral's Premio Biblioteca Breve de
Novela, the Rodolfo Walsh Prize for non-fiction, and two
Dashiell Hammett Prizes (one for CaÌmara Gesell in
2012). Gesell Dome is the first book of his to be
published in English)
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Saccomanno, Guillermo. Gesell Dome
Jack Shreve
Library Journal. 141.15 (Sept. 15, 2016): p82.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Saccomanno, Guillermo. Gesell Dome. Open Letter. Aug. 2016.616p. tr. from Spanish by Andrea G. Labinger. ISBN 9781940953380. pap. $18.95. F
Writing in the tradition of William Faulkner and John Dos Passos, Saccomanno, winner of the 2013 Dashiell Hammett Prize for noir fiction, exposes the secret life of a seaside resort town south of Buenos Aires, after the tourists have left. The one-way mirror in a Gesell dome that lets researchers watch people acting unawares is the metaphor here for readers observing the vagaries of the locals during the off-season. That this behavior is so savage reflects not only the town's Nazi past but also the less-than-civilized recent history of Argentina itself. A motley crew of loan sharks, skinheads, blackmailers and phantoms informs this novel, and the omniscient narrator alternates with first-person testimonies and articles from the town's weekly newspaper. Dante is its editor and sole reporter, who with his passion for the garbage of other people's lives depends on a limo driver and a unisex stylist for the sordid details that he prints. VERDICT This panoramic catalog of entertaining antisocial behavior, much of which the translator admits, in her excellent introduction, is over the top, is tempered and redeemed by its humor and compassion. An absorbing narrative for sophisticated readers.--Jack Shreve, Chicago
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Shreve, Jack. "Saccomanno, Guillermo. Gesell Dome." Library Journal, 15 Sept. 2016, p. 82. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA463632509&it=r&asid=6c267ff15ff5258c7d7c2554f581ae61. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A463632509
Saccomanno, Guillermo: GESELL DOME
Kirkus Reviews. (June 15, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Saccomanno, Guillermo GESELL DOME Open Letter (Adult Fiction) $18.95 8, 9 ISBN: 978-1-940953-38-0
"He was swollen, deformed, nibbled by fish." And that's one of the luckier residents of Argentine novelist Saccomanno's infernal seaside-resort city, where not much good ever happens.A Gesell dome is a one-way mirror that allows researchers to observe subjects without their being aware of it. So it is with this omnisciently noirish novel, which allows readers to hover over Villa Gesell in the off-season and see the odd doings of the year-round inhabitants. The resort (an actual place), the translator tells us in a helpful introduction, was named after another Gesell, the descendant of German immigrants, but no matter: all kinds of people end up in the beach town for the same sorts of exigencies and accidental reasons as the Europeans who have landed on the Rio de la Plata for the past half-millennium, among them an escapee from the military terror of the 1970s whose daughter, after affairs with drug dealers and sessions in rehab, pleads for her own daughter to find a place in the relative safety of Villa Gesell. "Trabuco kept a jealous eye on her," the narrator tells us, making revelations in fits and starts, "told her that a sinner never gets rid of the vice in her soul and that the Lord must have had some reason for infecting her, because let's not forget that Vicky has AIDS." Vicky isn't the only denizen of the city who's sick, and everyone seems altogether grumpy, perhaps because, under the orderly surface, the whole place is tainted with graft, corruption, and nepotism, all of which run through the city like the sewer line that, the narrator assures us, will never be built, "streets and boulevards gutted with no signs of a single pipe." Moving from character to character, Saccomanno writes with dark lyricism of the shady dealmakers, old-school Nazis, youngsters "with their hormones raging," prostitutes, and other types whom you might expect to find in a grim place and a grim time.Cynical and funny: a yarn worthy of a place alongside Cortazar and Donoso.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Saccomanno, Guillermo: GESELL DOME." Kirkus Reviews, 15 June 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA455212637&it=r&asid=3aafa204076c5b56376ba69d9db92c47. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A455212637
Gesell Dome
Publishers Weekly. 263.20 (May 16, 2016): p27.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Gesell Dome
Guillermo Saccomanno,trans. from the Spanish by Andrea G. Labinger. Open Letter, $18.95 trade paper (600p) ISBN 978-1-940953-38-0
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Never was there a cityscape as immersive, or a populace as rife with iniquity, as in Argentinian writer Saccomanno's noirish Gesell Dome, his first novel to be translated into English. The Argentinian town referred to as Villa is a seaside summer resort spot--but when the tourists leave and only the locals remain, a tangle of outlandish corruption, violence, and dark histories are unveiled. To begin with, there's the suicide of a pregnant middle schooler, a sexual abuse scandal at a kindergarten, and a devastating real estate development known as the Twin Towers that divides the town. But this turns out to be nothing compared to the secret lives of the three Quiroses brothers: crooked lawyer Alejo, Braulio, and Julian, the Villa's so-called Kennedys, who do their best to control their constituents. These include the mayor's unruly son, Gonzalo, whose attempt to blackmail Alejo backfires miserably; Julian's wife, Adrian (willing to go to absurd lengths for her Pilates studio); and Dante, editor and sole contributor to El Vocero, who, with the help of limo driver Rimigio, chronicles his township's ills. Tales range from the story of El Muertito, the monster who stalks the forests at night, to whispers of the Villa's Nazi diaspora. Then there are oddballs such as the loan shark called the Duchess, and cursed painter Claude Fournier, who all have a part to play in the Villa's mounting intrigues. Like Twin Peaks reimagined by Roberto Bolano, Gesell Dome is a teeming microcosm in which voices combine into a rich, engrossing symphony of human depravity. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Gesell Dome." Publishers Weekly, 16 May 2016, p. 27. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA453506735&it=r&asid=37714d084c72450535837a2eb14ba737. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A453506735
Guillermo Saccomanno: Gesell Dome
World Literature Today. 91.1 (January-February 2017): p87.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 University of Oklahoma
http://www.worldliteraturetoday.com
Full Text:
Guillermo Saccomanno
Gesell Dome
Trans. Andrea G. Labinger
Open Letter
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Argentina's Guillermo Saccomanno presents this ambitious and intricate tale of the half-lit life of a single town over the course of one winter. Fraught with passion in its sinister outpourings, Gesell Dome rushes the reader along, tasting a multiplicity of characters and crimes. Winner of the 2013 Dashiell Hammett Award, this captivating study of a fragmented city provides new perspectives on a resort town.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Guillermo Saccomanno: Gesell Dome." World Literature Today, vol. 91, no. 1, 2017, p. 87. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475309248&it=r&asid=e9d86881a4e082da64b573394f32be29. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A475309248
‘Gesell Dome,’ by Guillermo Saccomanno
By Michael Magras Updated 2:18 pm, Friday, December 9, 2016
In the mid-20th century, Yale psychologist Arnold Gesell invented a dome-shaped one-way mirror that now bears his name. As Dante, editor of the left-wing El Vocero, explains in one of the newspaper excerpts that appear throughout Argentinian writer Guillermo Saccomanno’s ambitious novel “Gesell Dome,” Gesell designed his mirror “for observing children’s behavior without their being disturbed by the presence of strangers.”
One can assume that Gesell’s definition of stranger didn’t include tourists to a resort town along the Rio de la Plata. And Gesell probably witnessed nothing like the often-lurid offseason activities exhibited by the residents of the Villa, the resort town in this novel, when the tourists are away.
Saccomanno uses the concept of the dome to invite us to observe the denizens of this 600-page exercise in literary noir. “Gesell Dome” is a bizarro Robert Altman film in book form: hundreds of characters and storylines that paint a portrait of a community, but with events far stranger than anything Altman created.
If the novel has a central character, it’s the Villa, which, like other cities in Argentina, accepted Nazi war criminals as residents after World War II. Now it is home to more than 50,000 people, many of whom drive around in 4x4s and harbor prejudices against “half-breeds” and other foreigners.
These residents give Dante many stories to cover, including the scandal that opens the novel: Eleven kindergartners referred to as los abusaditos are abused at Nuestra Señoradel Mar, a religious school “where the snobs send their progeny.” Parents are rightfully horrified, but other residents don’t want the media to cover the story for fear of the effect the news will have on tourism.
That’s just the start of the Villa’s many problems. Atila Dobroslav, a Croatian builder, destroys the Villa’s beloved forest to erect skyscrapers. He isn’t bothered by trivialities such as ecological disaster or beams striking construction workers in the head. Helping him is Cachito, the Villa’s mayor, a good ’ol politician with a drug dealer for a son; and a trio of young men who call themselves the Kennedys, the “Godfather”-obsessed leader of whom likes to make residents offers they can’t refuse.
Some of the more memorable of the novel’s characters are Moure, the veterinarian known as “the Mengele of the pet world”; Deborah Miller, the town psychologist, whose unconventional method of treating patients includes oil and Mayan massages; and Claude Fournier, a landscape painter who showers outside when it rains and spits at chapels he cycles past. And hovering over the action is the mystery of El Muertito, thought to be the “anguished scream of a child” heard late at night. No one really knows what El Muertito is. Some think it’s a bird with a little boy’s head. Others feel that, whatever form it inhabits, its cry is a call for justice.
Saccomanno shifts rapidly among narrative voices throughout “Gesell Dome,” and plot lines don’t play out neatly. Fans of straightforward narratives aren’t the target audience. And because of the novel’s repetitive elements — there’s a lot of adultery, bigotry and murder here — the tension sometimes sags, especially in the book’s midsection.
But if you enjoy lyrical depictions of iniquity and a sprinkling of philosophy mixed in with your noir fiction, then you’ll like “Gesell Dome.” Saccomanno writes midway through the novel, “The only way to show the wind is through its effect on things.” In other words, you can’t reach conclusions about human behavior unless you know its origins. As Arnold Gesell knew, the key is to observe and learn.
Michael Magras is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. His work has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer and Miami Herald. Email: books@sfchronicle.com
Gesell Dome
By Guillermo Saccomanno; translated from the Spanish by Andrea G. Labinger
(Open Letter; 616 pages; $18.95)