Marcelo Larraquy presented "Gordon" at the Clarín cultural center / Ñ: crime, politics, and dictatorship

Marcelo Larraquy officially opened the Clarín / Ñ cultural space (stand 4000 – Central Hall 9) at the 2025 Book Fair . The writer, historian graduated from the UBA, journalist and also screenwriter, who was Head of Investigations at the Clarín newspaper between 2011 and 2016, stopped by that stand to talk about Gordon (Penguin Random House), his thirteenth work, a non-fiction novel that portrays the life of Aníbal Gordon, a man who went through the Triple A in the 70s and later became a feared criminal.

#BookFair A great conversation with @pe_diazm about the novel GORDON in the @clarincom space at @ferialibro. Thank you! pic.twitter.com/xAvANxcKNY

— Marcelo Larraquy (@mlarraquy) April 26, 2025

Author of major works such as Galimberti: from Perón to Susana. From Montoneros to the CIA (2000), López Rega, Peronism and the Triple A (2011), and Pray for Him (2013) and Code Francis (2016) – the latter two about the life of Pope Francis – Larraquy was interviewed by journalist Pablo Díaz Marenghi and gave details of his new work, his first novel.

Gordon combines common robberies, murders, extortion, Peronism, the Falklands War, and a wealth of violence during the era of repression and in the world of crime, among other topics. There's also a mystery: who is the other person in the novel?

Why did you decide to tell the story this way, like a novel? asked Díaz Marenghi.

"I felt that, in a way, it was like going back to the roots . When we worked on Galimberti, he was a well-known figure, but he had remained under the radar due to his time in hiding, but he had survived after his pardon," Larraquy explained.

But in Gordon's case, this figure died in 1987. He had a very public six-month stint when he kidnapped journalist and political leader Guillermo Patricio Kelly . He then remained a fugitive until his arrest. In fact, when he is being tried, he's not being tried for the repression but for the kidnapping he committed in 1983.

Larraquy, a specialist in research on the dark years of the 1970s dictatorship, said that the criminal gang led by Gordon was marked by a unique style, characterized by crime. "This gang had differences with the Triple A cases, which were entirely ideological and political. In this case, they alternated between crime and politics," he emphasized.

After several years of research into the life of this sinister character, Larraquy decided to "let go" of the narrative and move on to another genre: the non-fiction novel.

"I'd already written too much. I was feeling overwhelmed until I said, 'What if I told this more freely ?' I loosened my voice and my hand a little, and with the resources I had, I started writing four years ago. It took a while.

“ I wanted to get into writing novels . I was so afraid of even recreating dialogue when I wrote investigative journalism books. So, to loosen up a bit, I decided to write a novel and make it clear to the publisher that this was a novel with all the tools available to write a novel,” she revealed.

The other crux of the matter was the novel itself, based on the collection of certain data to construct or discuss a particular story or character: fiction or non-fiction?, Díaz Marenghi asked.

“When one is in creation, one is confronted by one's own conscience. At one moment, one is a historian, and at another, one is a novelist ,” Larraquy replied.

And he continued: "There's a struggle, a tension at the time of writing that was quite difficult, but when you let go of your hand, there's another narrator who handles things differently, as if he were another person telling you, 'Now I'm the one who's in charge of the novel,'"

"Suddenly, I'd let go and tell something that hadn't happened but could have . The same thing happened with the characters; they weren't created to fill in a gap; they emerged on their own," the author of Gordon added.

This is how Tejo was born, the main officer of the Buenos Aires Police created by Larraquy as well as the construction of numerous stories .

"Tejo asked for a spot on his own, unexpectedly. Suddenly, he appeared here and is moving in this direction, as has happened to me with many stories that had historical support and were also related to the facts," he emphasized.

Larraquy also said that Aníbal Gordon didn't have a public life . "I don't think he's ever given an interview in his life. In any case, I spoke with people who were waiting tables at the courthouse where he testified in 1983. I also met other people who had known him as a neighbor or close associate. They told me he was a good neighbor. They said Gordon was a gentleman . These are all factors that add up," he recalled.

"I also knew all the girls who worked at the courthouse. These kinds of paintings allow you to move forward in the novel. There's also the creation itself, which can have a real-life reference to the character," the writer asserted.

Without spoiling the book, Díaz Marenghi mentions Julieta, a special character who belonged to the security forces and intelligence services during the dictatorship. This woman was the link that enabled Gordon to take a leap in his life: from the repressive forces of the Triple A to common crime. Larraquy constructed her as a basis for his recent novel.

"I spoke with many people in intelligence, and I also read about guerrilla issues. I spent 25 years working on political violence, intelligence, and people who persecute other people. Here, I was interested in the confusion surrounding crime . What kind of crime is it: a political crime or a common crime?" Larraquy asked.

“ That was the great confusion of the 1970s, and it's the novel's leitmotif , the plot that drives the novel forward. That's why Tejo is investigating a common crime, and Julieta is investigating a political crime. At one point, they cross paths. Is this an act of guerrilla warfare or a common crime? The novel progresses through that confusion,” its creator revealed.

Finally, Larraquy mentioned the two books he wrote about the recently deceased Pope Francis . Looking back, I have thirteen books, but I wrote four biographies of prominent figures: Galimberti, López Rega, Gordon, and Bergoglio.

Why Bergoglio? asked Díaz Marenghi.

“ He's from the 1970s , just like Aníbal Gordon as a criminal, like Galimberti as López Rega and Perón, like Galimberti and the Montoneros, Gordon as a criminal and a paramilitary figure. Bergoglio is a figure from the 1970s.”

“I came to him around that time, as the entire society was affected by the 1970s, especially by Bergoglio's reign within the Society of Jesus. Among a group of 150–200 priests, there were terrible internal tendencies at the Máximo school in San Miguel. All of this exploded, and continued to explode during the dictatorship. I was interested in the feeling of suffocation within the Society of Jesus in the 1970s . There was a world of internal tendencies—theological, political, and ideological—with two disappearances,” Larraquy commented.

“ I also really liked his resilience . Bergoglio was ostracized for a long time until he suddenly became Pope. In him, I discovered a man with many ambiguities and contradictions , but with a very strong sense of truth, with a great deal of humanism,” he concluded.