No one who read Lawrence Thornton's stunning debut novel, Imagining Argentina, will ever forget its mesmerizing narrative voice, its mixture of realism and magic, or its haunting story of Argentina's Disappeared -- the thousands who vanished without a trace during their country's Dirty War.
Now Thornton, in an electrifying new work, returns to Argentina in the tale of a young woman's mysterious resurrection following a massacre in a killing field. After walking across the pampas, she appears on a doorstep in Buenos Aires, where she is taken in by a couple, both physicians, whose fierce reliance on the rational, explainable world has been shaken by their own daughter's disappearance. Locked inside the girl -- mute but for her first words on arrival, "I am" -- are the stories and names of eleven Argentinians executed in the night, representing the hope and despair of a people struggling to heal the devastating scars left by one fallen regime. The ghostly voices of these eleven carry the narrative of Thornton's powerful novel, lending a moving lyricism to its searing story of loss and redemption.
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Now Thornton, in an electrifying new work, returns to Argentina in the tale of a young woman's mysterious resurrection following a massacre in a killing field. After walking across the pampas, she appears on a doorstep in Buenos Aires, where she is taken in by a couple, both physicians, whose fierce reliance on the rational, explainable world has been shaken by their own daughter's disappearance. Locked inside the girl -- mute but for her first words on arrival, "I am" -- are the stories and names of eleven Argentinians executed in the night, representing the hope and despair of a people struggling to heal the devastating scars left by one fallen regime. The ghostly voices of these eleven carry the narrative of Thornton's powerful novel, lending a moving lyricism to its searing story of loss and redemption.
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Used availability for Lawrence Thornton's Naming the Spirits