Long After Midnight at the Nino Bien: A Yanquis Missteps in Argentina | 
| Author: Brian Winter
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 75232
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.6 x 1.1
ISBN: 1586483706
Dewey Decimal Number: 793.33
EAN: 9781586483708
ASIN: 1586483706
Publication Date: March 3, 2008
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Product Description
After moving to Argentina on a whim, Brian Winter, a young American reporter, embarks on a crusade to learn that devilishly difficult dance that demands both discipline and passion: the tango. While he dances the night away in the milongas with the fiery denizens of Buenos Aires, the country around them collapses, gripped by inflation, street riots, and revolution. In a book that is part travelogue and part history, the author evokes his immersion in a dark underworld. He visits old dance salons, brothels, and shacks on the dusty Pampa, searching for the tango's shady origins in the hope that understanding may help him dance better. Along the way, he discovers that the tango, with its tales of jealousy, melodrama, and lost glory, may hold the secret to the country that is inexplicably disintegrating before his eyes.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Well written and entertaining, but... August 3, 2008
The author has talent and knows how to write. However, he does not manage to go even a little bit beyond the usual stereotypes about Argentina. It may have been too easy for him to fall to the temptation of using the same template over and over again when he was working for Reuters during those years when the Argentinian economy collapsed, and the world showed a sudden, albeit passing, interest in that country's fate: this book is just that same template more elaborated and expanded. Although the author seems to be a perceptive young man and seems to have spent some effort researching the country's history, he wasn't able to come up with an understanding beyond the cliche. That's at least my humble opinion, having spent 25 years of my life in that country. I still give this book three stars because it's entertaining and it taught me a couple of things about Discepolo and the tango.
Mafia Round Table of Wise Old Milongueros May 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Books and blogs by women about their tango experiences/epiphanies in Buenos Aires proliferate yearly. (OK, so I'm one of those women.)
It's refreshing to read a story about a foreigner in Buenos Aires written by a man. Sure, we've had the cheap and disgusting Kiss and Tango by Marina Palmer, and the interesting pre-crisis Bad Times in Buenos Aires by Miranda France, among many others, but now we have something entirely different: Brian Winter's Long After Midnight at the Nino Bien; a Yanqui's Missteps in Argentina.
Not a memoir, but rather a well-written attempt to make 21st century readers understand the why-and-wherefores of the Buenos Aires of today. It's not an excuse for the author to delve into his emotional past, or to write about sexual encounters, nor does he do any reflection--the main aspect of a memoir. It's an impressionistic travelogue with fantasy characters--think Wizard of Oz or Star Wars set in South America with lots of illuminating and witty historical citations.
Young Mr. Winter (a recent college grad who floats to Argentina hoping to find a job) also writes about his experience as a tango dancer wannabe. He relates preposterous scenes with fictitious milongueros, but I believe these scenes, while accurately conveying feelings and emotions if not truths, are not from his experience but from research and imagination. He is a fantastic researcher, as well as a hell of a writer. And he's funny, too!
He wanted to write an essay about Buenos Aires, and how then could he leave out tango, even if he knew nothing and cared less about it? His Mafia round table of wise old milongueros allow for exposition and stories about Argentina's history, the influence of the gauchos, the corruption of the politicians, the legacy of Peron and Evita. Miller quotes tangos and the gaucho poem, Martin Fierro. He quotes and relates and integrates, all with humor and a great turn of phrase, and it makes for enjoyable reading, and a history lesson too.
But I do know about the milongas, the milongueros, and certainly, about Nino Bien, the "decaying bar" of the title. His stories of cartoon characters like El Nene, El Dandi, El Chino 1 & 2, and El Tigre entertain and maybe enlighten. Certainly it's not the habit of real milongueros, or anyone else in a milonga, to drink frozen strawberry daiquiris at La Ideal or Nino Bien, let alone wear white terrycloth suits with orange shirts and pink scarves and lead ganchos and barridas. While he has the tango facts and details mostly all wrong, he nevertheless zeros in on the mood, effect and the result. The milonga is an easy target for satire.
Yes, there are countless factual errors in the tango telling, and lots of mistakes in Castellano and Buenos Aires geography, but from my fact checking on the internet, Miller's tales of political corruption, battles, presidents, and gauchos all seem to ring true. I especially enjoyed the story of the depressed tango lyricist Discepolo and his mis-alignment with the government, and his artistic crashes with the tango god himself, Carlos Gardel.
So let's not read this book as a personal memoir, or as history, but rather as a fable of life and times in Buenos Aires from 2000-2004 from a foreigner's perspective. Despite its flaws in accuracy, there's much to be learned here, as well as several laughs and a couple of hours of entertaining reading.
 An appreciation which comes to life in a book highly recommended for a range of collections May 9, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
LONG AFTER MIDNIGHT AT THE NINO BIEN: A YANQUI'S MISSTEPS IN ARGENTINA tells of an American who decides on a whim to move to Argentina and learn to tango - his quest to shine in the tango hall with a group of elderly men who move like Enrique Iglesias and his quest to understand the tango leads to a deeper cultural appreciation of Argentina as a whole: an appreciation which comes to life in a book highly recommended for a range of collections: those surveying international dance in general, tango in particular, or Latin American or Argentinean culture as a whole.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Fascinating and Fun May 3, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book makes Argentina come alive with real people and lively dialogue. I've read a lot about Argentina's social, political and economic crises, but the country never really came together for me until I read this book. Argentina, like the tango, is a sad thought you can dance to. Of course, it's a foreigner's perspective, but a fresh one from a young man who jumped into the whirl of Argentine life without preconceptions and writes about it with a refreshing honesty and lack of pretense.
I WANTED TO LOVE THIS BOOK...I REALLY DID...BUT... April 1, 2008
5 out of 11 found this review helpful
As a Latina who was married to an Argentinean for many years and spent some time in Argentina in both the capital, Buenos Aires, and city of Mendoza in the wine country, I looked forward to reading this book. On the plus side, some of it is wryly humorous, and the author's chronicle of the history of the tango in Argentina is somewhat interesting. The author also captures some of the flavor of Argentina and gives a very decent account of its unstable political history.
Some of the characters described in the book, old tango instructors with whom the author hung out during his stay in Argentina, are colorful, and the author gives the reader a taste of the passion that the tango arouses and of its place in the culture of Argentina. I also felt that these very same characters that the author professed were his friends were probably secretly laughing at the author, a lumbering Texan who wanted to learn about the tango, and would say just about anything to him just for effect, whether or not it was true.
Moreover, some of the author's conclusions are those that only a Yanqui would devise, as I did not feel that they derived from a real understanding of Argentina or its people, given his limited scope of reference. Also, a few of the translations in the book were off the mark, which I found to be annoying. I also found the quality of the writing to be rather pedestrian, overall. Still, there is a modicum of enjoyment to be gotten from this book by those interested in other cultures or in the tango.
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