Papers in the Wind

April 15, 2014
A touching and amusing look at friendship through the eyes of four Argentine soccer fans. One of the men, Mono, is dying of cancer. His brother and their two best friends worry about how to ensure the financial future of Mono's daughter, Guadalupe. But there is no money, as Mono has invested all he owned in a sort-of-promising young soccer player named Pittilanga. The kid isn't bad, but clearly he's not a star. So the friends concoct a plan to sell off their interest in Pittilanga for enough cash to provide for Guadalupe. The problem is that the player's stats don't justify asking for the amount of money they need. When was the last time he scored a goal? The too-brief chapters--many just a couple of pages long--go back and forth from before to after Mono's passing but don't dwell on his death or his friends' mourning. Instead, they follow the sometimes-harebrained schemes for raising Pittilanga's value, such as faking his stats. All four friends readily insult each other in mostly good humor, not sparing Mono, who wants to stay fully involved during his treatments: "But I can't leave everything on hold," he tells a friend. "I can't stop living my life until I get cured or until I die." But tensions increase when it looks like everything is going to blow up in their faces. It's a story that gets better the more the friends doubt each other. One minor annoyance is the constant use of ellipses in quotes, often three or four at a time--.".." .".." .".." .".."--apparently to show that the characters are pausing to think. Alas, it's a distraction that doesn't work well. What does work is the clever ending, which makes the tale worth the telling. Overall, the book is a pleasure to read.

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March 1, 2014
When Alejandro Raguzzi (nicknamed Mono ) dies of cancer, his brother, Fernando, and friends Ruso and Mauricio take it upon themselves to ensure the future of Mono's young daughter, Guadalupe. The problem is, Mono's entire estate consists of one terrible investment: he owns the transfer rights to Mario Juan Bautista Pittilanga, a soccer player laboring deep in the third division, far from Buenos Aires. If they can sell him, the girl's future is securebut how do you sell a striker who can't score goals? Their comically inept efforts test the group's already volatile dynamics. As the three friends navigate the murky waters of professional soccer, they learn a lot that, as fans, they wish they hadn't, and their desperate, dubious dealings offer a poignant contrast to the dying Mono's despair over the long decline of his beloved team, Independiente, and his concern that his daughter will not be raised as a fan. Can the game return the love we put into it? Sacheri, a best-selling author in Argentina, offers an entertaining and affecting novel of friendship, faith, and sport.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)