Seven Ways to Kill a Cat

This brilliant debut novel proves exactly why Mat as N spolo has been selected by Granta as one of the best young novelists currently working in the Spanish language. In a story as fast-paced and immediate as a film, written in the slangy street-talk of Buenos Aires, N spolo tracks the violent coming-of-age of Gringo, an orphaned boy who isn't yet twenty but is having to survive in an adult world of crime, prostitution and drug dealing. Set during the lead-up to the 2001 financial crash in Argentina, when tensions are running high and the streets are full of protestors, Seven Ways to Kill a Cat shows the limited escape routes open to someone like Gringo, whom we first meet barbecuing a cat with his friend Chueco because they haven't got enough to eat. Gringo and Chueco get involved in robbing a bar, only to find they are in over their heads, and merely the pawns of El Jetita, a crime boss eager to monopolise the drug dealing in the barrio. Gringo spends his ill-gotten gains on a copy of Moby Dick, the only book he has ever read u and a book in which he finds increasing parallels with his own story. In the meantime, he is finding out things about his past he didn't know, and doesn't want to know u to do with Toni, the man he has always considered a role model, and the death of Gringo's mother. In a desperate shoot-out, where Gringo's personal emotions get tangled up with El Jetita's takeover, his companions end up dead. On the run, Gringo finds himself caught up in a street riot kicked off by striking workers. The border between the civilised world and the lawless barrio is frayinga