1990s Argentine economic boom

The 1990s Argentine economic boom provides historical context for Thursday Night Widows, placing the social world of its gated-community families against a period of economic expansion. The novel’s contrast between that boom and its later, crisis-era present makes economic change part of the setting through which the families’ circumstances are understood.

Economic Context

During the 1990s boom, Argentina’s peso was pegged to the dollar. The account identifies this monetary arrangement as a defining feature of the period, but supplies no further economic indicators or details about its effects; the boom functions here as the historical frame for the novel’s social portrait.

The Boom and the Novel’s Social Setting

Thursday Night Widows focuses on the families of an exclusive gated community on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Its attention to their social circumstances follows the boom, while the narrative present falls after 9/11 and during the financial crisis. This shift in time places the community’s enclosed world within a wider change in economic conditions, linking the earlier period of expansion to a later moment of crisis without treating the boom as the novel’s only concern.