by Irvine Welsh (Author)
Two themes articulate the suggestive plot of The Argon Shot: the gaze and the city. A defined space serves as a link: Dr. Su疵ez's eye clinic, the Mexican version of the famous Barraquer Clinic in Barcelona. House of signs, the building built by Su疵ez aims to serve sight and vision, health and the transcendent forms that enter through the eyes. But this ideal occurs in a turbulent Mexico, where organ trafficking is an active variant of the informal economy. The dream has been perverted and Su疵ez cannot be located; the great prophet of sight has become invisible. His disciple Fernando Balmes must look for the thread that leads to the master. Everything that passes through his eyes - the city, the clinic, others - is subjected to the rigor of the ophthalmologist until something clouds his horizon: a woman alters the glass with which he sees the world and a plot of shadows takes him into a country where the urgency is not to cure the eyes but to sell them.