SOURCE: "Murder with Mirrors," in The Washington Post Book World, May 31, 1992, p. 4.

In the following review, Thornton admits that "readers who admire fiction that celebrates its own making will be drawn to Black Novel."

Like many contemporary Latin American writers, Luisa Valenzuela delights in pushing language to its limits. Black Novel (with Argentines) is rich in puns, double entendre, and razor-sharp images. Here, for example, is a description of the habits of one of the main characters: "Roberta had probably popped that question into his head; it was her off-the-cuff kind of remark, jabbed into the listener like a banderilla."

Valenzuela is also fond of theorizing. Roberta Aguliar, like the other protagonist, Augustin Palant, is an Argentine novelist, though unlike him, she does not suffer from writer's block. "Write with the body," she tells him. "The secret is res, non verba [things, not words]. Renew, restore, re-create … Words...