We have so much fun in the first twothirds , living in the wormy brain of this strange man, that we feel a bit wrenched from it when the plot kicks in. Overall, however, this is yet another masterwork from one of the best modern practitioners of the crime novel. J. David Osborne Tigard, Oregon Alexandre Vidal Porto. Sergio Y. Trans. Alex Ladd. New York. Europa Editions. 2016. 160 pages. How do we make sense of changes in others that upset the ways we understand ourselves? This question hangs over Sergio Y., a slim novel from Brazil that received the Paraná Literary Prize. In its opening chapters, Armando, a successful seventyyear -old therapist in São Paulo, reflects in a searching tone about his former patient, Sergio Y. The teenage son of a wealthy Armenian family, Sergio came to Armando with a vague unhappiness; Armando found in him a patient of integrity, intelligence, and sobriety. He notes a recurring theme in the “patchwork quilt” of their sessions: Sergio’s interest in a great grandfather who left Armenia for Brazil. The theme of emigration—and the perilous parallel journey into authentic selfhood and happiness—will become key. The narrative gains dramatic intrigue and psychological depth as Armando recalls spiraling into doubts about his profession after the death of Sergio, who ultimately moved to New York only to be killed there. Further research revealed that his patient had started living as Sandra, transitioning into a female identity. Armando, shocked that this desire never came up in therapy, despaired until a colleague pointed out that he might have played a more minimal role in his patient’s death than he feared. “At the time I did not understand that I had inadvertently reproduced in my mind the stereotype that the death of a transsexual is always caused by the tragic circumstances of his life,” he reflects. The gradual correction of psychological course that takes place after this insight sees Armando drawing parallels between Sergio’s reinvention and that of two other characters: Sergio’s greatgrandfather and a Lithuanian woman who began a new life as a man after emigrating to the US (and whom Sergio read about in a book he bought at Ellis Island—a landmark Armando suggested he visit on his trip). In doing so he raises stimulating questions about the search for identity and creates a sense of connection between multiple such efforts across time, his own included. One of Armando’s main aims as a narrator is to complicate the narrative of gender transition, to embrace a certain measure of existential mystery that ties it to other journeys of transformation. Aside from a few hasty final chapters—Armando’s meeting with Sandra’s killer in prison, for example, which feels sketched—he accomplishes this with a sensitivity to nuance and a supple, philosophical expansiveness. Evan James Brooklyn, New York Eduardo Sacheri. The Secret in Their Eyes. Trans. John Cullen. New York. Other Press. 2015 (© 2011). 384 pages. This edition is a movie tie-in re-release of the 2011 translation and features artwork on the cover with the faces of Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, who starred in the “Major Motion Picture” based on the novel and released last year. As it turned out, the movie wasn’t so major and disappeared as quickly as breath on a mirror, and this despite the success of the 2009 Argentine movie based on the novel, which won the Academy Award for best foreign language film as well as dozens of other international awards. If you have to watch one of these, watch the Argentine production, but a far World Literature in Review 98 WLT MAY–AUGUST 2016 better choice is to read the novel, which is compelling from beginning to end and far richer in detail. The protagonist, Benjamin Chaparro, retires from his work in the investigative court and sets out to write a book based on an unsolved case that torments him, the rape and murder of a young wife in her own bedroom. His writing also stirs his memories of his love for Irene Hornos, an intern at the time of the murder but now an important judge...