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Frank Wynne

Seven Ways to Kill a Cat Paperback – 3 Nov. 2011

by Matias Nespolo (Author), Frank Wynne (Translator)

3.8 15 ratings

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As tense as a thriller, as vivid as an undercover documentary, Matias Nespolo's bold and brilliant first novel takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride through a place of crime and deprivation. Set in Buenos Aires at the time of Argentina's financial crash, and seen through the eyes of twenty-year-old Gringo, it tells the story of two boys on the cusp of adulthood who have no choice but to join the gang warfare that rules their community. At least, Gringo's friend Chueco thinks they have no choice. He's determined to prove himself hard enough to get into El Jetita's gang, but smart enough to remain his own man. Gringo is more intelligent. He knows that gangs don't work like that: you obey the leader or else. As the two get drawn ever deeper into a pitched battle between El Jetita and his rival Charly over control of the barrio's drugs and prostitution, Gringo sees a life of love and loss pass before his eyes. A few days before, he was joking with Chueco about killing cats. Now, he's fighting to save his skin.

Written in the street-slang of the slums, and full of fantastic characters from the sympathetic Gringo to the ruthless gang leader El Jetita or the grotesque bar owner Fat Farías, this is one of those novels that is about one place and every place. While its depiction of Buenos Aires rings vibrantly true in every detail, the barrio could be any place of urban deprivation where young men are pushed into a violence that, ultimately, will destroy them.

Print length

256 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Harvill Secker
Publication date

3 Nov. 2011
Dimensions

13.49 x 1.91 x 21.59 cm
ISBN-10

1846554500
ISBN-13

978-1846554506
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Product description

Review

"Néspolo's novel bears comparison with such masters of description of life in the slums as Alexander Baron and Nelson Algren...An excellent adventure story that also documents urban poverty and violence, with faultless dialogue and at breathtaking pace" (Independent)

"First-rate...7 Ways to Kill a Cat is a debut pervaded by a grim rather than magic realism, and the better for it" (TLS)

"A brilliant debut" (Javier Cercas)

"A story as forceful as a bullet. It leaves you breathless. High voltage literature" (El Mundo)

"A startlingly strong debut... Tarantino-style fast editing, black humour and sicko-hilarious gun-toting slapstick... This is a brilliant debut and as fast a read as any graphic novel you'll come across - but with a lot more style and drama." (Chris Moss Time Out)

About the Author

Born in Buenos Aires in 1975, Matías Néspolo studied literature, going on to write poems, short stories, journalism and then Seven Ways to Kill a Cat, his acclaimed first novel. He has been living in Barcelona since 2001 and, in 2010, was selected by Granta as one of their best young contemporary Spanish-language novelists.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvill Secker (3 Nov. 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1846554500
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1846554506
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.49 x 1.91 x 21.59 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 3,407,283 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 93,679 in Humorous Fiction
- 104,757 in Adventure Stories & Action
- 206,565 in Contemporary Fiction (Books)

Customer reviews:
3.8 15 ratings

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Frank Wynne
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Frank Wynne
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FRANK WYNNE has translated over fifty works from French and Spanish by authors including Michel Houellebecq, Patrick Modiano, Ahmadou Kourouma, Tomás González and Arturo Pérez-Reverte. In the course of his career, his translations have earned him the IMPAC Prize for Atomised by Michel Houellebecq (2002), the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (2005), and he has twice been awarded the Scott Moncrieff Prize for translation in 2008 and most recently in 2016 for Harraga by Boualem Sansal. He is a two-time winner of the Premio Valle Inclán, for Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras (2012) and for The Blue Hour by Alonso Cueto (2014). His translations have been awarded the CWA International Dagger in three consecutive years. He has spent time as translator in residence at the Villa Gillet in Lyons and at the Santa Maddalena Foundation.
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Matías Néspolo
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3.8 out of 5

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tibot

I love this novel

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 November 2014

Verified Purchase

I love this novel. It is breathtaking and adventurous. I could hardly put it down, so I read it within two days. Marvellous.

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Dr R

An uncompromising description of barrio life and death

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 April 2014

Feline fanciers are advised to omit the first chapter of this gripping and uncompromising debut novella. Set in a Buenos Aires barrio just before the country's financial melt-down, it tells the story of two young men, the narrator, Gringo, so-called for the blonde hair he had as a child, and his best friend, Chueco, and of their being caught up in the gang warfare between El Jetita, the local gang boss, and Charly, who has moved on to his territory. The corrupt police chief waits to identify the winners, so he can `tax' them. Gringo, the more intelligent of the two friends, recognises the opportunity of getting away from the barrio and its gangland tentacles but the impulsive Chueco believes that he is clever enough to survive and flourish. The story describes how mistaken he is in this regard in a series of short chapters that take place over just a week or so.

There is virtually no let up from deprivation, violence and criminal activity, so this book will not be to everyone's liking. Wynn has done a marvelous job in retaining the crackle of the author's prose; Matías Néspolo, though born in the city he describes, has lived in Barcelona since 2001. In a Note, Wynn describes the challenges of translating a novel set in such an environment and, although my closest connection with the events in the book is once having drunk a cup of [Paraguayan] maté, it reads like I imagine it should.

The characters are very effectively described, including those caught up in the violence, and the deals assuredly with the fleeting opportunity that Gringo has for showing affection - to his unrelated `Mamina', to a younger boy, Quique, who will certainly end up like Gringo and Chueco, indeed each time we meet Quique we can see him further along this common path, and to the girl he adores, Yanina, who sees studying as her route out of the barrio. As the violence escalates, Gringo reflects `Used to be able to smoke a cigarette right down to the butt without the ash falling ... Used to. Not now. Now I've got a .38 with six bullets in the cylinder. I counted them. I've got some cash in my pocket and more back home., under the mattress. I've got a ******-up feeling I might lose my balance and fall, and a kind of longing to go to hell'. The widening lack of trust between the two central characters is also beautifully described and translated.

There is some dark humour, for example when the friends break into the house of local businessman, Fat Farías, they find a safe full of money `banknotes of every colour of the rainbow spill out - blue, brown, green, red, purple...They've all got lots of zeros and they all bear the face of El Liberator. We stand there, staring at them like idiots. I remember notes like this, and I'm sure Chueco does'. They are, of course, discontinued currency from the late 1970s. A small amount of valid currency is found but, paradoxically, this is hard to spend, `I've read exactly one book in my whole life and here I am buying another one. To make matters worse, the guy's practically giving it away when all I was trying to do was get rid of my money...'.

The book is `Moby Dick' and there are some wonderful descriptions of that book and its characters through Gringo's eyes [Ishmael's elaborate description of peripheral details about the life of a 19th-century whaler makes him want to `end the little f*****' s life'] and from characters outside the slum who feel they understand its deepest literary and political messages. Gringo and Chueco are deftly contrasted, more light- and dark grey than black and white. Together their scheming will end up very badly; separated, there is a chance that perhaps one will turn his life around by leaving the barrio, as Gringo's long-disappeared Uncle Toni did.

In the frenetic second half, too many characters crowd in and the stories start to peel apart - a threading strand about an anti-government demonstration by teachers and others seems there to move the action beyond the barrio. With experience, Néspolo will be able to avoid such imbalance and will undoubtedly become a leading voice amongst 21st-century Latin-American writing.

Despite reservations, I give this novella 9/10 for its energy and for the blistering description of a part of Argentinian society that few in Britain [and, as the translator, Frank Wynne, points out, not many Argentinians] can envisage. Gringo's barrio "could be any deprived area" where young men with no hope see violence as both a means and an end. It may be our children's future.

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RARA

Decent

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 February 2019

Argentinean slum gangster story.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 July 2017

I really enjoyed the first half off this novel. It is written in a unique slang style, with lots of interesting and humorous metaphors and similes and while not for everyone I did find it refreshing and fun to read. I did find I have learnt a lot about Argentine culture by reading this. Nespolo dose use the barrio setting well however I did find the characters to be slightly one-dimensional. Unfortunately the second half of the novel just descends into gangster warfare and it did find it a bit repetitive. I get the impression Nespolo started to run out of ideas and I did struggle to finish it. While I do think this could have been a lot better I would still recommend it to anyone looking for something a bit different.

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Seven Ways to Kill a Cat Paperback – 3 Nov. 2011

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