Tessa Bridal's first novel, published in 1997 won the Milkweed National Fiction Prize. It is at once a coming-of-age novel and a chronicle of the rise of military repression and the use of torture to terrorize dissidents in Uruguay during the 1960s and 1970s.

The first half of the novel is a somewhat idyllic account of the 1950s childhood of Magdalena Ortega in Montevideo. She and her best friend, Emilia are the hoydens of the neighborhood, allowed to roam freely and create harmless mischief. As they reach adolescence in the 1960s, romance, student riots and political consciousness intrude upon their dreams and ambitions.

The Tupamaru urban guerilla movement seeking economic reform and the overthrow of the government is brutally repressed by the Uruguayan police and military, aided and abetted by the CIA and the US Office of Public Safety who sent operatives to South America to train police forces. Central to this operation was an FBI Agent, Dan Mitrione, who spread the use of refined torture techniques to gather information and intimidate the opposition. He was kidnapped and assassinated by the Tupamaru in 1970 when the government refused to release prisoners in exchange for his return.

Bridal puts Magda in the center of the historical events as participant and narrator. This is an important read for anyone interested in the recent history of Uruguay, but there are graphic accounts (mercifully rather short) of torture. One of the messages that came through to me in this novel is how violence begets violence on all levels of the social and political spectrum. ( )