The appearance of Manuel Puig's new novel, The Buenos Aires Affair, is especial cause for celebration, not only because the book makes for fascinating reading, but also because it demonstrates that its already highly accomplished author continues to take chances and to grow as an artist.

In his two previous novels, Betrayed by Rita Hayworth and Heartbreak Tango, Puig explored, in a somewhat campy, comic manner, the dreams and obsessions of a host of provincial Argentine characters whose speech and lives often seemed to have been influenced by popular movies of the Thirties and Forties. His characters recalled, in a way, Nathanael West's dreaming, unfulfilled, hopeless Hollywood souls, but Puig's people were much more down-to-earth, and Puig, unlike the unsparing West, treated them affectionately, even at times sentimentally. For the most part, he allowed them to speak for themselves, recording their conversations, interior monologues, letters, and diary entries...