After Plume, here’s my second review of the week for Splice. Empty Words (tr. Annie McDermott) is the first novel by the late Uruguayan writer Mario Levrero to appear in English. A synopsis does not necessarily sound like much: it’s written as a series of handwriting exercises, alongside a longer discourse that its protagonist writes, trying (and largely failing) to keep content at bay. There’s more going on than meets the eye: I learnt a lot about the book through the process of reviewing. In the end, it’s the narrator’s attempt to take control of his own life and world.

Read my review of Empty Words here.

Book details

Empty Words (1996) by Mario Levrero, tr. Annie McDermott (2019), And Other Stories, 152 pages, paperback.

The US edition is published by Coffee House Press.