A Perfect Cemetery

Childhood does not last long in the Argentine mountains of Cordoba, and adult lives fall apart quickly. In disarming, darkly humorous stories, Federico Falco explores themes of obsessive love, romantic attachment and the strategies we must find to cope with death and painful longing.In the middle of a blizzard a widow watches the ruin of her late-husband's garden, until suddenly she sees a woman running naked in the falling snow. After telling her parents she is abandoning her Christian faith, a girl becomes infatuated with a Mormon missionary who reminds her of a boy killed in her village years before. When his family's home is lost, a father desperately offers his daughter's hand in marriage to anyone who will take them in. And a town's mayor tries to fulfill his father's dying wish - to design the perfect cemetery.

These rich and authentic portraits of Argentinian lives are well worth seeking out...You could imagine Alastair McLeod or John McGahern paying homage. (5 stars) --RTÉ

Expansive and ingeniously crafted--an unforgettable collection. --Kirkus, starred review

The quiet assurance with which Falco addresses rural environments represents a departure recalling the perspectives of writers from the northern hemisphere such as Denis Johnson, Knut Hamsun or Tobias Wolff. --The Times Literary Supplement

Falco proves himself as a fine storyteller. --Publishers Weekly

Each powerful story captivates and I cannot recommend this collection enough. --Morning Star

Perfectly honed... [Falco's] skill is apparent in the originality of these plots, the economy and naturalness of the characters' conversations, and in the meticulous observation of a gesture that may encapsulate whole central motifs --Ñ Magazine

The succinctness of the plotlines in these stories is inversely proportional to their vast narrative expanse, to everything the writing is able to carve out between the sharply curtailed dialogues and all that simmers underneath. --La Nación