This is a rigorous study of one of Onetti's most controversial and lucid texts. Mendez-Clark elucidates its contribution to the development of new narrative approaches and new critical models of interpretation in Latin America. The author shows Los adioses' ambiguity and the way it stems not only from the narrator's unreliable account of the story, but also from what happens to the reader while assessing this account. Mendez-Clark emphasizes the textuality and the role of the reader in the search for meaning. It has been said that Onetti, alongside Borges, Rulfo, Carpentier and Lezama, has played a decisive role in the consolidation of Spanish-American literary creations; Mendez-Clark hopes his research will stimulate more study on writers from Latin America.