Kiss of the Spider Woman
Manuel Puig
 Two prisoners, Luis Molina and Valentín Arregui, share a cell in a Buenos Aires Prison. It is estimated that the timeframe in which the story takes place is between September 9, 1975 through October 8, 1975. Molina, an effeminate and openly homosexual window-dresser, is in jail for "corruption of a minor," while Valentín is a political prisoner who is part of a revolutionary group trying to overthrow the government. The two men, seemingly opposites in every way, form an intimate bond in their cell, and their relationship changes both of them in profound ways. Molina recounts various films he has seen to Valentin in order for them both to forget their situation. Toward the middle of the novel the reader finds out that Molina is actually a spy that is sent to Valentin's jail to befriend him and try to extract information about his organization. Molina gets provisions from the outside for his cooperation with the officials with the hopes of keeping up appearances that his mother comes to visit him (thus making a reason for him to leave the cell when he reports to the warden). It is through his general acts of kindness to Valentin that the two fall into a romance and become lovers however briefly. For his cooperation Molina is parolled. On the day he leaves, Valentin has him take a message to his revolutionary group outside. Little does he know that he is also being followed by government agents, trying to find the location of the group. Molina dies in a shootout between the police and Valentin's group. In the end of the novel we are left in Valentin's stream of consciousness after he has been given an anesthetic by a doctor following a brutal torture, in which he imagines himself sailing away with his beloved Marta. The first story is based on a movie that Molina recounts and opens the novel with. It is based on film called Cat People (1942 film). During the narration the reader finds out that Valentin sympathizes with the secretary because of his long lost love, Marta. The second story that is recounted by Molina is based on a Nazi propaganda film. Unlike the first subplot, it is unclear whether or not this is an actual movie. It is believed to be a composite of multiple Nazi films and an American film called "Paris Underground". Molina tells a long story of an old Nazi film, a French woman falls in love with a noble Aryan officer and then dies in his arms after being shot by the French resistance. The film is a clear piece of Nazi propaganda, but Molina's inability to see past its superficial charms is a symptom of his alienation from society, or at least his choice to disengage from the world that has rejected him. The third film is about a young revolutionary with a penchant for racing cars. He meets a sultry older woman and they get to know each other. The kid's father gets kidnapped by some guerrillas and the kid goes to save him, with the aid of the sultry older woman. The father ends up dying in a shootout with some police. The kid ends up staying with the guerrillas. One important note to make here is that the way the father dies is very similar to Molina's own ending in which he dies in a shootout between cops and Valentin's comrades. Based on the 1943 film "I Walked with a Zombie" by Jacques Torneur, the fourth story concerns a rich man who marries a woman and brings her to his island. On the island she finds out that a witch doctor has the ability to turn people into zombies. As it progresses we find out that her husband's original wife was seduced by the witch doctor and turned into a zombie. He ends up telling his ex wife he loves her, but is ultimately killed by the witch doctor. In the end the main character sails away from the island. The fifth story is a recounting of a love story in which a newspaper man falls in love with the wife of a Mafia boss. Love struck, he stops his newspaper from running a potentially damaging story about the woman. They run away together, but can find no work. She prostitutes herself when he becomes too ill. Valentin is forced to finish the story despite Molina recounting it. In the end the man dies and the woman ends up sailing away. The way that Valentin chooses to have the story end is very similar to what happens in his stream of consciousness narrative in the end.