Tóibín's work regularly explores the themes of living abroad, creativity and personal identity, focusing especially on homosexual identity, and on identity when confronted with loss.
Identity Garay's identity is complex and layered. His homosexuality is for the most part hidden; he has mixed origins (an English mother); his class status is fragile (he and his mother are middle class but impoverished); he is affected, like all Argentinians, by the atmosphere of fear marking the years of military dictatorship; the neoliberal turn in Argentina provides him with the opportunity to adopt new identities but they come across as just that – adopted. Other figures in the novel have an impact on Richard's expression of his own identity. He is son, brother, colleague, friend, and lover throughout the novel and at different stages, but his sexuality remains a certainty. The relationship with his mother, her alienation, deterioration, and ultimately her death can be seen as the rejection of his British identity for an acceptance of his homosexuality and identity as an Argentinian (and not half British) man. His mother embodied binary heteronormative behaviour, embracing Britishness and heterosexuality, and was dismissive of any sense of the "other". The alienation from the mother figure in favour of proximity with his partner Pablo, and other lovers, reinforces a negative portrayal of the constraints within a mother-son relationship.
Masculinity within the novel Richard describes how in his youth he flirted with cross-dressing and a female persona. As an adult he is attracted to distinctly masculine men. He enjoys working with the American businessmen and ‘mimicking their masculinity’ as it gives him a sense of control. With his lover Pablo however, he finds himself able to be gentle and protective and to elicit the same responses from Pablo. His sexual responses to male figures in the novel are noticeably aesthetic, in that the attraction is primarily physical before anything else. The portrayals are realistic and allow the reader to fully appreciate the development of the romantic relationship between Pablo and Richard when it happens. Overriding the novel is the polarised political situation of Argentina which is dominated by the masculine. The portrayal of the family is strictly nuclear, and all those who have the potential to be considered as powerful in Argentina are men with subordinate wives. Susan, although in a position of equality with her husband, is portrayed as conforming to a typically patriarchal view of women by attempting to seduce Richard, and later Jorge. She becomes a seductress with a strong sexual appetite and cannot just remain a diplomat in her own right.
Argentina and England Richard's mother's preoccupation with Englishness is a mirror of her failure to flourish in Argentina, particularly once her Argentinian husband has died leaving her reliant on the limited charity of in-laws and the local Anglican church, in particular its vicar. Mother and son live together in a shabby apartment, but Richard distances himself from his mother's outlook. This may be in part because of his concealed homosexuality, which she only becomes aware of shortly before she dies. The Falkland War follows soon after. Richard's responds as a patriotic Argentinian, even though his acquaintances at times are concerned for him, given his part-English origins. Richard's bilingualism opens the way to many opportunities but they draw him into the orbit of the United States, not England, about which he exhibits neither interest nor a desire to visit.
Argentina as an Allegorical Substitution for Ireland Costello-Sullivan argues that, as with other Toibin novels, Argentina as the setting with its "social and political exclusions" and the "representation of Argentina's oppressive, silencing polity invariably resonates with the Irish context".
Complacency, ignorance and moral choices In an important discussion, the Chilean refugees acquaint Richard with their experiences when the Allende government was overthrown. In particular Raul's torture at the hands of the incoming Pinochet regime is detailed. Richard realizes he has always averted his gaze from evidence of police and official brutality in then military-ruled Argentina, the era of the
Dirty War. At other points of the book two instances are detailed. The first occurs when Richard is having sex against a backdrop of noise from car engines revving and then being told by his pickup that the cars were powering cattle prods used to torture suspects at the police station opposite: "I still do not know if what he said was true . . . I did not pay much attention [then], I remember the pleasure of standing at the window with him, my hands running down his back, more than anything else." (p. 8). Years later an acquaintance from his university days, Francisco, challenges Richard over his seeming indifference to the disappearance and likely death of one of their fellow students at the hands of the authorities – Richard claims ignorance (pp 118–20). Later again, Susan Ford confesses to Richard that she was working for US intelligence in Santiago at the time of the overthrow of Allende (albeit in a subordinate role). Only years on did she fully realize her complicity in what happened at that time (pp 157–58). The theme is never fully worked out – that is, Richard does not become more morally aware in the course of the novel, unless his loyalty to Pablo could be so construed. The theme seems to be used to signal how morally numbed an individual can become living in a police state, or perhaps in almost any circumstances.
Neoliberalism The two Americans, Susan and Donald Ford, are exemplary of the US wish to incorporate post-military Argentina into the US-led liberal world order. This includes shoring up a democratic political system but one which would not allow the return of Peronism, Argentina's mid-century experiment in radical (but more or less democratic)
economic nationalism, to which the US had always been hostile. Lacking any strong political attachment Richard goes along with this, in part because he is made to see (a telling episode comes when he assists some visiting IMF officials: "did I know, they asked me that the train system of Buenos Aires lost five time its annual revenue?", p 115) that the existing political economy of Argentina was deeply corrupt. On another occasion he himself becomes complicit in a corrupt transaction. Rueful after the event, he is told some time later by Federico, his accomplice, that "things were different now . . . every move you make is watched, everything is countersigned" (p 245). At one point during the lobbying over the privatization of the country's oil industry, Richard becomes convinced that the privatization would be bad for Argentina (p 260), but the insight is not further developed nor does it lead to any change of course on Richard's part.
HIV/AIDS The novel was published in 1996, at a time when new drugs, in particular
AZT and protease inhibitors, were holding out the possibility of living rather than dying with HIV/AIDS. The novel captures a time – from the mid 1980s to the mid-1990s – when AIDS was not only deadly and fearsome but played havoc with many for whom neither their sexuality, nor the cause or character of their ill-health, could be disclosed to their families. No explicit parallel is drawn between this phase of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the advent of
economic liberalism in Argentina, but it could be argued that Richard's ignorance to the devastation wrought by the Dirty War and his ignorance to the HIV/AIDS epidemic operate in conjunction with one another.
Silence and space The use of space in the novel is important in highlighting the sexual repression in Argentinian society. Richard initially seeks comfort from the space provided by the saunas during the novel, as a place where he can express his sexuality and seek refuge from the external stress of his daily life. His apartment after the death of his mother acts as a place for Richard to return to the reality of his life before his social and economic advancements; but soon becomes a place of stagnancy and deterioration from which he longs to escape. Likewise, the saunas become another setting for the expression of the silence, isolation, and uncertainty that was congruent with being homosexual at the time. As Tóibín notes, "…while I was there, I kept meeting gay people who had never told a single person that they were gay…" (O'Toole, ‘Interview’, p 97). Communication through spoken word is rare in the saunas too, and so the importance of silence is established because it manifests the sense of fear of the individuals in being discovered as homosexual in a largely homophobic society. Richard comes to realise, when discussing a gay bar with friends, that "everyone [there] is frightened. They stare straight ahead as though someone is going to tell everyone their big secret" (p 249). ==Awards and nominations==