Word: evitas
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Martinez embraces a wide range of styles and perspectives in an attempt to capture Evita's mystique, frequently shifting his focus from past to present, from fact-based journalism to whimsy-based fantasy and from black comedy to deep philosophical inquiry. The result is a subtle, moving study of the life and death of a national icon and a distinct sense that "what is history is not always historical...
...novel's most shocking--and most effective--move is to follow the story of Evita's corpse and its improbable travels. After Evita dies of cancer at age 33, her husband Juan Peron has her embalmed so that she will forever look like "a liquid sun." Even after Peron's regime topples and he retreats into exile, Evita remains a national obsession. The Argentinean people will not let her go, insisting that "she will come back, and she will be millions...
...Evita's political and personal enemies also cannot forget her, and her corpse becomes an amulet of power. Martinez implies that Evita was not regarded as a thinking and feeling human being, but rather as a national treasure whose thoughts and emotions were defined by her subjects...
...argument that Evita was merely a filter or receptacle for the struggles and dreams of the masses pervades Santa Evita, making the tale of her corpse's adventures richly ironic. Several of the military officers and other characters responsible for the transport or maintenance of her body fall deeply in love with her, until their obsession controls their lives. They speak of Evita as if she were living, and many believe that she has mystical powers. They avoid saying her name, instead referring to her as "Person," "the Deceased," or "that woman." She is both a curse and blessing...
Interweaving segments in an attempt to uncover her identity at various points in her life. Martinez carefully reconstructs conversations and interviews he has had with people connected to Evita, dead or alive. These journalistic starting points facilitate flashbacks relating scenes from Evita's youth, rise to power and rapid physical decline. But which Evita is the real one: the illegitimate little girl who must sneak into her father's funeral or the demigod standing next to Peron on the balcony of the national palace...