First published 1997
Dolores Masson has marched in Buenos Aires' plaza for over a decade, remembering the Disappeared who vanished during Argentina's military regime. Each week she visits Carlos and Teresa Rueda, hoping for mystical visions that might locate missing loved ones. After years of searching, Teresa finally reveals where Dolores can find her two grandsons, infants when their mother was taken by the regime. This revelation triggers a cascade of consequences. Dolores will reclaim the boys, now teenagers with no memory of their true family. The general responsible for their kidnapping will watch his world collapse. The only parents these boys have known will face destruction through guilt and fury. Thornton completes his trilogy about Argentina's Dirty War, following the award-winning Imagining Argentina and Naming the Spirits. The story explores how families torn apart by political violence attempt to rebuild connections across years of separation and trauma.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century, activism
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Period: Military Regime
288 pages · Hardcover · Doubleday
Content warnings: child-death