Las viudas de los jueves (60 aniversario de Alfaguara) / Thursday Night Widows

AUTORA GALARDONADA CON
PREMIO PEPE CARVALHO DE NOVELA NEGRA 2019
PREMIO BEST NOVEL DE VLC NEGRA 2021
PREMIO HAMMETT A LA MEJOR NOVELA DE GÉNERO NEGRO EN ESPAÑOL PUBLICADA EN 2020

La novela que consagró a Claudia Piñeiro, y que inspiró la película de Marcelo Piñeyro, presenta un cuadro implacable de la decadencia social de la Argentina del cambio de siglo.

Detrás de las altas paredes perimetrales, más allá de los portones reforzados por barreras, se encuentra Altos de la Cascada. Afuera, la ruta, la barriada popular de Santa María de los Tigrecitos, la autopista, la ciudad, el resto del mundo. En Altos de la Cascada viven familias que llevan un mismo estilo de vida y que quieren mantenerlo cueste lo que cueste. Allí, un grupo de amigos se reúne semanalmente lejos de las miradas de sus hijos, sus empleadas domésticas y sus esposas, quienes, excluidas del encuentro varonil, se autodenominan, bromeando, «las viudas de los jueves». Pero una noche la rutina se quiebra y ese hecho permite descubrir, en un país que se desmorona, el lado oscuro de una vida «perfecta». El paraíso está a punto de estallar.
 
Las viudas de los jueves fue galardonada con el Premio Clarín de Novela 2005.
 
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

“Piñeiro’s clever U.S. debut.. . illuminates the hypocrisies of the country's upper classes after 9/11.”—Publishers Weekly
 
Three bodies lie at the bottom of a swimming pool in a gated country estate near Buenos Aires. It's Thursday night at the magnificent Scaglia house. Behind the locked gates, shielded from the crime, poverty, and filth of the people on the streets, the Scaglias and their friends hide lives of infidelity, alcoholism, and abusive marriage. Claudia Piñeiro's novel eerily foreshadowed a criminal case that generated a scandal in the Argentine media. But this is more than a story about crime. The suspense is a byproduct of Piñeiro's hand at crafting a psychological portrait of a professional class that lives beyond its means and leads secret lives of deadly stress and despair. It takes place during the post-9/11 economic meltdown in Argentina, but it is a universal story that will resonate among credit-crunched readers of today.
 
The film Thursday’s Widows, by Argentine New Wave and award-winning director Marcelo Piñeyro is now streaing on Netflix.
 
"An agile novel written in a language perfectly pitched for the subject matter, a ruthless dissection of a fast decaying society"—José Saramago, Nobel Prize winner
 
“A razor-sharp psychological and social portrait not only of Argentina, but of the afluent Western world as a whole.”—Rosa Montero
 
“Piñeiro is particularly skilful at exposing the social forces undermining Argentine society, and the fragility of personal relationships. We learn the surprising truth of the three men’s death in the final chapter; the build-up to it is riveting.”—The Times (London)
 
"Piñeiro builds up tension through banal, domestic details and the accretion of despair in everyday marital and professional struggles. There may be bloody murder at the centre of this novel, but the dystopia portrayed is an indictment not solely of an assassin but of Argentina’s class structure and the willful blindness of its petty bourgeoisie."—Times Literary Supplement