Leave It All Up To Me (Dejen todo en mis manos)

Leave It All Up To Me (Dejen todo en mis manos)

Novel
Penguin Random House , 2007
121 pages

Published by

Spanish Penguin Random House/  France Éditions de L’Arbre/ Italy La Nuova Frontiera / Israel Tésha Neshamot / Brazil Rocco Editora

An unsuccessful writer receives the following proposal from a publishing house: they will publish his novel if he discovers and locates Juan Pérez. This mysterious man, some time ago, sent the editor a manuscript from Penurias, a town in the interior of Uruguay, without indicating the sender.

From the moment this novelist turned improvised detective accepts the proposal, the Kafkaesque outcomes of this brilliant book by Mario Levrero begin. An unavoidable master in the difficult art of desecrating the altar of literature to intelligently reconstruct a free, venomous, corrosive, playful writing.

Written in the style of a fake thriller with a great amount of humour. One has to admit that the plot in Levrero’s writing is skilful and compact and possesses a fluency and an expertise which show in natural acrobatics that allow him to jump from one scene into the following one. Francesca Lazzarato, Il Manifesto

Dejen todo en mis manos is beautiful, meaningful, and important….it is not only a good way to spend some time, but also provides us with keys for understanding a part of the savage spirit of our times….  Hotel Kafka

Levrero has an extraordinary ability to recreate kafkaesque situations, dialogues and monologues that provoke the laughter in the reader, which will find him or herself unable to move away from the book until the liberating final. Corriere della Sera

It looks like a sui generis novel by Chandler or one by Kafka. Vittorio Giacopini, Il Sole 24 ORE

Levrero developed a touching understanding for his troubled protagonist, who, thanks to a perfect and absolutely unexpected denouement, will end up acquiring in the reader’s eyes the temper of a hero too human not to be included among the most endearing characters of our contemporary literature. Juan Manuel Vial, La Tercera