Review of Call Me Magdalena, by Alicia Steimberg

Call Me Magdalena Cover     I once read a murder-mystery in which the identity of the killer was not revealed until the last sentence of the novel.  There is something to be said for a writer who can build a mystery that well.  To be able to keep track of details, and extremely small details at that, requires an amount of precision that many writers do not possess.  But there is also something lacking in that writing style.  Quite often the characters and their descriptions are introduced at the beginning of the story.  A reader knows almost everyone’s identity, except perhaps that of the criminal being pursued, and full details of the crime committed within the first three or four chapters.  The middle of the story consists of apprehending the criminal, maybe with a setback or two thrown in for dramatic tension, and the conclusion, hopefully, consists of her/his apprehension, or if not apprehension, at least a realization by one or more of the characters that they “had the wrong guy the whole time.”  Alicia Steimberg’s Call Me Magdalena, a mystery to be sure, does not follow this convention.

     I read about half of the book before I remembered that this novel is a mystery, and if I had not remembered that the person who recommended it called it “an unusual mystery” I probably wouldn’t have fully understood that there was in fact a mystery until I was almost finished with the novel.  Steimberg cleverly introduces characters and scenes, only to add detail tens of pages later, and it isn’t until the very end of the novel that the nature of the mystery is revealed.  Unlike other mystery novels, in which the crime is delivered at the outset of the narrative, we are made to wait for the narrator to figure out what actually happened on the night in question before we as readers get a chance to understand exactly what “happened.”  In the end, the only aid you really receive is your own hindsight.

     The confusion that exists in the narrator’s story and in the narrator’s mind, and the confusion that the physical text itself presents due to its non-conventionality, exist mimetically with each other and aid each other in the presentation and identification of the plot and main themes of the novel.  We find out early in the novel that the narrator may not be altogether sane.  There are, in fact, points where people come right out and say that she is crazy.  The narrator is either not sure what her age and name are or has forgotten, she does not recognize people that she has know for quite some time, she does not remember her friends’ names or ages, and she isn’t even sure how to define her own cultural heritage.  Why did Steimberg choose such an unreliable character/narrator to present her mystery?

     To answer the preceding question regarding Steimberg’s choice of narrator, we must examine the structure of the novel and how Steimberg integrally ties that structure to the narrator’s frame of mind.  The end of the novel is the story’s temporal beginning, that much we have already discerned.  On top of that, the narrative style tends to shift.  Sometimes the story takes place from a first person point of view, sometimes from the second person, and sometimes from the third person point of view.  The novel uses theatrical format, poetics, and prose.  There are plays on words that allow multiple interpretations of meaning and there are sections of narrative that must be read over and over and over again in order to determine who is actually speaking.  There are even times when a piece of text within quotation marks converses with text that we would normally assume to be narrative, not dialogue.  Essentially, we are given multiple platforms with which to read this novel, or more appropriately, we are given multiple structures that work with each other to tell a single story.

     The narrator has a problem describing herself as Jewish.  Is she a Jewish Argentinean, or an Argentinean Jew?  The narrator says at one point, “It’s odd that I have to think carefully before I say I’m Jewish or Argentine or Argentine and Jewish, so the word order won’t upset anyone and in order to tell the truth” (12, my emphasis).  It’s important to note here that the narrator believes that multiple explanations lead to a more accurate representation of the reality that exists.  There are several places in the text where the narrator forces the conversation to stay on the topic of her or another character’s race until she feels that she has sufficiently established that person’s identity.  But the obsession with description does not stop cultural identity.  Physical description in the novel, when it appears between the more dominant dialogues, is immensely rich, precise, and pointed.  But it is sometimes as multi-layered as her conversations concerning cultural heritage.  In the “Buenos Aires” passage, the narrator attempts the same thing that she attempts when she speaks of someone, or herself, being Jewish:

“The City of Buenos Aires.  Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires.  The Bureau of Museums of the Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires.  The Historical Division of the Bureau of Museums of the Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires.  The Art Department of the Historical Division of the Bureau of Museums of the Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires.  The Archival Section of the Art Department of the Historical Division of the Bureau of Museums of the Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires.” (Steimberg 55)

It must be noted that this is strictly narration, that is to say, there is no conversation going on in this paragraph.  It is all internal.  But only looking at this string of sentences demonstrates, in part, the point that I am making.  The form of the narrative takes on attributes that the narrator displays within the context of her own life.  The narrator has a need, in the previous passage, for clarity.  She looks for the best construction of words, or division of ideas, to represent the city of which she speaks.

     Description and detail are important, but the actual form of the novel is also striking.  There are two significant, blatant format changes that appear before a reader finishes the novel.  The first format change ends up looking more like a poem that has been inserted or written into a sea of prose.  The poem moves from one thought to the next, rather aimlessly, except for a few lines which remind a reader that there is still someone coming toward the house in the dead of night, apparently hoping to “peek through the keyhole to satisfy and old longing” (Steimberg 49).  In a way, this poem is a shorter version of the entire novel.  Much of the poem is spent wandering, hence the line, “One can always let one’ thoughts wander” (Steimberg 50).

     The second significant shift in form is the most obvious, and we are actually told the reason for the form shift by one of the characters.  All at once the narration shifts to a sort of play-like, or theatrical format.  After a little back and forth between two characters named Marlene and Iñaki, a woman named Flora asks if they have shifted to theater.  Marlene says, “Yes and no.  It’s easier to announce beforehand the name of the person who’s about to speak than to have to add ‘so-and-so’ said every few minutes” (Steimberg 93).  Again, the narrator is seeking the easiest, and most accurate way of conveying information so that there will be no confusion.

     Postmodern fiction can often frustrate readers not only because authors often substitute meaning for form, but also because the quest to find new and innovative ways to intrigue readers often becomes buried in an attempt to write to the genre.  Such is not the case with this novel.  Steimberg delivers a masterfully fabricated mystery in a new and beautiful way.  No longer must mystery fans read the same predictable format.  Now they have Call Me Magdalena.