Two men - Valentin, a young Marxist held on political charges, and
Molina, a 37-year-old window-dresser convicted of pederasty - share
a Buenos Aires prison cell. Why? Because the warden assumes that
Valentin will negligently spill information about his fellow
revolutionaries to Molina, that Molina will then pass along this
info; and Molina fosters the warden's assumption. But quite the
opposite turns out to be the case: Molina in reality acts as
Valentin's mother/protector, nursing him over terrible diarrhea
caused by purposely-tainted food and feeding him instead from food
packages gulled from the warden. Molina also entertains Valentin by
telling about old films he's seen: voodoo cheapies, Nazi propaganda
romances, trashy Mexican melodramas - a continuity that battles
jail time, a soothing, ongoing ribbon of images that gives the book
a satisfying meta-narrative quality. And in time, Valentin responds
to Molina's kindness and lack of demands; the relationship grows
organically, through benevolence and desperation, with a top crust
of sentimentality that soon gives way to reveal Puig's real intent:
the interlocking of Valentin's position as a victim of political
repression with Molina's sexual persecution. All of this works, and
the theme emerges just as it should, clearly but quietly. Why then
did Puig feel the need to belabor this political/sexual parallel in
a fussy, essay-like footnote that appears in pieces throughout the
book, explicitly constructing a theory for gay liberation with
references to Freud, Marcuse, and Dennis Altman? This eccentric,
gifted writer should have trusted this book - and wise readers will
trust it enough to ignore the footnotes - because it is his
richest, least mannered work yet, especially well served by the
spare tact of Thomas Colchie's translation. (Kirkus Reviews)
The novel on which the major 1985 film was based. Sometimes Molina and Valentin talk all night long in the still darkness of their cell. Each has always been alone and in danger of betrayal, but in Cell 7 each surrenders to the other something of himself that he has never surrendered before.
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