Review
Englander's relatively short but
immensely powerful first novel is set in 1976 at the
start of the Dirty War, a 7-year campaign by the
Argentine military government against suspected
subversives. Kaddish (named for
the Jewish prayer of mourning) always has a new scheme for making money. He
earns his latest erratic source of income by
breaking into a walled off cemetery at dead of night
in order to chisel the names of Jewish whores and
pimps off their gravestones, so that their respectable second
generation children can erase their own pasts.
This is the same past that Kaddish, the son of an
immigrant whore, proudly embraces, which
makes him an effective untouchable to the Jewish
community as a whole. Meanwhile, his wife, stoical and
reliable Lillian,...
Beyond the Book
The Argentine "Dirty War"
Estimates of the number of
people who were "disappeared"
during the Argentine "Dirty
War" range from 9,000 to
30,000, of which about 1,000
were Jews. After the death of
controversial President Juan
Peron in 1974, his third wife,
Isabel, assumed power (Peron's
second wife was Eva, made famous
by the musical
Evita).
Isabel was politically weak and
was soon removed from power by a
military junta who then set
about arresting anybody they
believed challenged their
authority....
