Shantytown (novel)

Shantytown is a novel by César Aira originally released in Spanish under the title La Villa in 2001. Chris Andrews’ English translation was published by New Directions Publishing in 2013. The book takes place in the Bajo Flores neighborhood, a shantytown (Spanish: villa miseria) in Buenos Aires, and focuses on various characters and how they intersect. Maxi is a middle-class adolescent who doesn't work or go to school, has an imposing physique, does little other than go to the gym, and has night blindness. To stave off boredom, he immerses himself in helping scavengers collect cardboard for change, gaining their confidence, and wandering through the slums, filled with wonder at what he experiences. He is the only one who sees the invisible cardboard scavengers.

Vanessa is Maxi's sister; she is mostly harmless but gets involved with a bad crowd. Inspector Ignacio Cabezas, a corrupt police officer, is drawn to Maxi, and gains influence with Vanessa in order to infiltrate the "carousel", a drug sales operation, by pretending to be the father of a girl she knew who was murdered. The relationships between the characters complicate as they cross each other. There are corrupt police officers, drug dealers, out of breath journalists and yellow photo journalists, there are neighbors who plead for safety and a high-profile judge with a heavy hand, there is an evangelical pastor who is also a drug dealer, there are churches, sects and corrupt businesses, there are omnipresent mothers, and fake fathers.