Junta Larsen, a Promethean pimp, attempts to "achieve two perfections--a perfect woman and a perfect bordello" in the sleepy South American outback town of Santa Maria. "This masterful novel ranks with the fictions of Puig, Cortazar and Marquez. His serpentine lyricism tempered by whiplash irony, Onetti is an elegist of the twentieth century."--Publishers Weekly.