Painted Lips

Awash in small-town gossip, petty jealousy, and intrigues, Manuel Puig’s Heartbreak Tango is a comedic assault on the fault lines between the disappointments of the everyday world, and the impossible promises of commercials, pop songs, and movies. This melancholy and hilarious tango concerns the many women in orbit around Juan Carlos Etchepare, an impossibly beautiful Lothario wasting away ever-so-slowly from consumption, while those who loved and were spurned by him move on into workaday lives and unhappy marriages. Part elegy, part melodrama, and part dirty joke, this wicked and charming novel demonstrates Manuel Puig’s mastery of both the highest and lowest forms of life and culture.