Set in 1986, this is the non-love story between an aging 'queen' (only known by her stage name, the Queen of the Corner) and a young Marxist rebel, Carlos. She comes from a working-class background, has survived with sex-work until another queen taught her to embroid for wealthy ladies. Now takes advantage of the general misery to get sex out of poor men in need of money, food, or shelter during the curfew. We don't learn much about Carlos, except that he genuinely comes to care for the queen, but at the same time is taking advantage of her, using her as cover-up for as he's part of a plot to assassinate Pinochet (the book is set against the backdrop of a real ambush, that left seven bodyguards dead while Pinochet managed to drive back to his villa in Cajon del Maipo). Like the queen, the book is delightfully camp, poetic and smutty, dreaming and political. I really loved it.

It must be said that the representation of cis-women is not great, verging on sexist: going from the annoying, farcically entitled wives of the military hierarchies, to the gossipy and simple-minded women from the neighbourhood.