Emilio Renzi, literary alter ego of legendary Argentine author Ricardo Piglia, returns in The Way Out, an academic thriller that relentlessly questions the lengths we go to hide our own truths and to uncover the secrets of others.
In the mid 1990s Emilio Renzi leaves behind his unstable life in Argentina to take a visiting position at a prestigious university in New Jersey. Settling in for a semester of academic quietude and wintry isolation, he is surprised to be swept up in a secret romance with his colleague, the brilliant and enigmatic Ida Brown. But their clandestine relationship comes to an abrupt end when Ida is discovered in her car, killed in what appears to be a tragic accident. Discontented with the police's lackluster inquiries, and troubled by the inexplicable burn found on her hand, Renzi begins his own investigation.
Renzi's suspicions are piqued as details emerge about a bizarre string of attacks, apparently targeting scientists and researchers. But after a radical manifesto appears in the press threatening continued violence, the killer's identity is suddenly revealed. As he delves deeper into Ida Brown's past, Renzi discovers a link between her and the terrorist that sets him on a path of no return: he must discover once and for all whether her death was part of a larger pattern and, if so, whether she was a victim or accomplice. Renzi's quest for truth reveals not only the secrets of his former lover, but also reveals a darker side of humanity that will force him to confront the systems and culture that could produce such a misguided killer.
A bracing critique of American culture and an exploration of privacy and politics in an era of rapid technological advancement, Piglia's signature blend of autobiography and fiction is in full effect in this intriguing twist on the detective novel.
Praise for The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: The Happy Years
"Much like Susan Sontag, the American essayist and one of my favorite writers, my first introduction to Piglia is through his diaries. And what a privilege to be in someone's head even for a bit, to know what troubled or delighted them as they made their way into the world. That no matter how esteemed or revered they are in the public spotlight, they deal with the same problems most of us do: figuring out how to make rent, finding enough time to write, loss, heartbreak."
-- Pia Cortez, Book Look
"The Diaries of Emilio Renzi continue to be a fascinating literary-autobiographical experiment ... and, especially, a wonderful immersion in literature itself. Of particular interest in showing the transition of Latin American (and specifically Argentine) literature -- no longer: "out of sync, behind, out of place" --, Piglia's range extends far beyond that too. Yes, most of this is presumably mainly of interest to the similarly literature-obsessed -- but Piglia makes it hard to imagine who wouldn't be."
-- M. A. Orthofer, The Complete Review
Praise for The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: Formative Years
"Splendidly crafted and interspliced with essays and stories, this beguiling work is to a diary as Piglia is to "Emilio Renzi" a lifelong alter ego, a highly self-conscious shadow volume that brings to bear all of Piglia's prowess as it illuminates his process of critical reading and the inevitable tensions between art and life. Amid meeting redheads at bars, he dissects styles and structures with a surgeon's precision, turning his gaze on a range of writers, from Plato to Dashiell Hammett, returning time and again to Pavese, Faulkner, Dostoyevsky, Arlt and Borges.... this is an embarrassment of riches... No previous familiarity with Piglia's work is needed to appreciate these bibliophilic diaries, adroitly repurposed through a dexterous game of representation and masks that speaks volumes of the role of the artist in society, the artist in his time, the artist in his tradition."
--Mara Faye Lethem, The New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice
"For the past few years, every Latin American novelist I know has been telling me how lavish, how grand, how transformative was the Argentinian novelist Ricardo Piglia's final project, a fictional journal in three volumes, Los diarios de Emilio Renzi--Renzi being Piglia's fictional alter ego. And now here at last is the first volume in English, The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: Formative Years, translated by Robert Croll. It's something to be celebrated... It] offer s] one form of resistance to encroaching fascism: style."
--Adam Thirlwell, BookForum, The Best Books of 2017
"A valediction from the noted Argentine writer, known for bringing the conventions of hard-boiled U.S. crime drama into Latin American literature...Fans of Cort zar, Donoso, and Gabriel Garc a M rquez will find these to be eminently worthy last words from Piglia."
--Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
"When young Ricardo Piglia wrote the first pages of his diaries, which he would work on until the last years of his life, did he have any inkling that they would become a lesson in literary genius and the culmination of one of the greatest works of Argentine literature?"
--Samanta Schweblin, author of Fever Dream
"Ricardo Piglia, who passed away earlier this year at age seventy-five, is celebrated as one of the giants of Argentine literature, a rightful heir to legends like Borges, Cort zar, Juan Jose Saer, and Roberto Arlt. The Diaries of
