A crime novel that’s much more than a crime novel

The primary issue the author trains her sights on in 'Elena Knows' is a woman’s right to control her own body and the social obstacles that prevent her from doing so. (Representational image: Romina Farias via Unsplash)

There’s a rupture in the natural order of things, and people are grieved and disoriented. Into this breach steps an individual who unmasks the perpetrators through initiative and perseverance. Society heaves a sigh of relief, and things go back to normal.

That, in excessively broad strokes, is the format of much crime fiction. But what if the existing system itself is flawed? Many writers have used this premise, leading to works that are cynical, hard-boiled and even resigned in tone. Here, individual crimes are merely symptoms of a deeper social malaise.

Take some recent novels from Argentina, for example. The genre has frequently been used to lay bare the consequences of free-market policies. Writer Sergio Olguín has even claimed that crime fiction best represents contemporary Argentine literature, spotlighting social and political themes without being didactic.

The work of Buenos Aires-based novelist and screenwriter Claudia Piñeiro fits into this framework. Her novels deal with the pressures and hypocrisies that bedevil those in the country’s professional classes, gated communities, media houses and more. The characters often place gain and convenience over morality and integrity.

These concerns aren’t restricted to her country alone, of course. A reflection of this is that Piñeiro is today one of the most translated Argentine writers after Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar. Her new novel Elena Knows, now translated into English by Frances Riddle, has just been shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize.

In an afterword to the Charco Press edition, the University of Edinburgh’s Fiona Mackintosh points out that Piñeiro, when accepting Barcelona’s 2019 Pepe Carvalho award for international crime noir writers, said that “crime fiction came into being to denounce injustice”. Nowadays, she went on, it is impossible to write a crime novel without also writing about the society in which the crime occurs.

This approach informs the events of Elena Knows. The primary issue the author trains her sights on is a woman’s right to control her own body and the social obstacles that prevent her from doing so. Piñeiro also touches upon the constraints that a metropolis places on women’s daily routines, in particular those who are old and infirm.

In graceful and vivid sentences, the novel outlines the travels and travails of Elena, now in her sixties, whose daughter has been found dead in a local church on a rain-swept afternoon. The authorities claim that it is a case of suicide but Elena, who thinks otherwise, is determined to get to the bottom of the tragic incident on her own. The title is clearly ironic; as we discover, there’s much that Elena doesn’t know.

She sets off alone on a long and arduous journey across Buenos Aires by subway and taxi to locate a figure from her daughter’s past. “Today’s the day she’s going to play her last card, to try to find out who killed her daughter,” she resolves, “to talk to the only person in the world who she thinks she can convince to help her”.

This is fiendishly difficult because Elena is a Parkinson’s patient. She can only move, slowly and carefully, by ingesting regular doses of pills without which she is immobilised. Elena learned, we’re told, “that when her brain orders her feet to move, for example, the order only reaches her feet if the dopamine takes it there”. As if this was not enough, the disease has also left her hunched over, unable to sit or look up straight.

The novel’s chapters alternate between Elena’s present journey and memories of the past with her daughter. Notably, both of them are not portrayed as self-sacrificing or noble, but often irascible and difficult to live with. They squabble, make up, and navigate the hurdles that Parkinson’s places in their way: the private challenges of walking, eating, going to the bathroom and swallowing pills; and the public hurdles of dealing with heedless insurance and health officials.

Now, her daughter is no more, with Elena placing little reliance on the pronouncements of the police or church authorities. She also has no faith in prayer or the belief that “we are all of dust and to dust we must return”. By the end of her trip, the dogged Elena will discover the continuing consequences of an intervention made by her daughter years ago.

In this way, the weight of the past and actions of the present come together at the conclusion. As Elena Knows demonstrates, acts of crime and the way we think about them have as much to do with individuals as with the structures of the society in which they live.