Mitre is a hallucinatory return journey between the Buenos Aires train stations of José León Suárez and Retiro on which everything one might imagine comes to pass: love, friendship, misfortune, misunderstandings and betrayal.
Every journey offers an opportunity to learn but first one must surrender to the vagaries of the trip. In the case of Mitre these are especially exaggerated, explosive and at times cartoonish. Station after station, Roberto and Mariela’s lonely lives slowly intertwine to tell a fragile but memorable love story. With all their flaws, passion and a degree of pathos, Roberto and Mariela want the same thing as everyone else; a touch of happiness, even as the suspicion dawns that it isn’t what they were born for.
Jeanmaire’s style takes us through a prism in which every word and gesture is twisted, at first for laughs before we suddenly ask ourselves what it was we found so funny. This wonderful novel plays true to the old maxim that tragedy plus time equals comedy. And there is no doubt that Mitre is a great black comedy.