BEER CANS IN THE RIO DE LA PLATA

This prizewinning 1994 novel recounts the (mainly amorous) exploits of Ulysses, the son of a Greek bar owner in Buenos Aires, who impregnates his girlfriend, flees from marriage, and undertakes an odyssey among the wealthy Americans whose yacht fortuitously rescues him—until the aggrieved women in his life arrange this unheroic adventurer’s comeuppance. Homer can rest on his laurels—in fact, Stamadianos’s cheeky update of The Odyssey more closely resembles a mixture of “Los Olvidados” and “La Dolce Vita.” It’s very slight, and not very involving.