Buenos Aires, 1970s. Kaddish Poznan chips the names off gravestones for a living, removing traces of disreputable ancestors for their more respectable kin. His wife Lillian works in insurance, earning money when people live longer than they fear. When the government is overthrown in a military coup, their son Pato is arrested by the police and becomes one of the disappeared. Desperate to find him, Kaddish and Lillian turn to the Ministry of Special Cases, a bureaucracy of anguish and false promises, and they discover just how far they are willing to go to save their son…
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Reviews
Englander writes with exquisite precision
At times so heartbreaking that you want to turn away
Who is this Nathan Englander, so young in novelist years, but already possessed of an old masters voice? One reads this novel in awe of Englander's talent
Wry and haunting ... Englander's novel is a striking memorial to the victims of political oppression
Powerful and engaging ... shot through with a dark humour, which makes it all the more moving