The Gods of Tango marries two favorite reasons for me to read novels. The protagonist is a woman pretending to be a man, and it deals centrally with music. In this historical/geographical context, the first reason is a necessary condition for the second. In 1913 Argentina, Leda couldn't become a professional musician without disguising herself as a man.
It's not that there weren't any women at all in Tango music in 1913, but Tango was and still is very male dominated in the areas of composition and performance.
I discovered that the first well known woman composer of Tango music was Eloísa D'Herbil. She was born in Spain, and originally studied classical music with Franz Liszt who called her "Chopin in skirts". See her Wikipedia article here.
In The Gods of Tango, there was an exchange about the origins of Tango. One character said that Tango is African, but another insisted that Tango began with the drums and was therefore "the sound of the gods". I've heard drums in the background in Tango music, but no dominant drum beat. My guess is that I've only heard the White people's version of Tango.
I loved the protagonist's long term lesbian relationship with a singer who performed at the venue where she played. I also loved the music aspect. Its rare that I find so much content that I love in a novel. I'm sure that this will be one of my favorite novels of 2021, if not my top fiction read of the year.
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