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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Nov 2005, 240 pages
Paperback:
Sep 2006, 270 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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Set in Spain, this is a haunting and beautiful story of one man's brush with terrorism and his quest to find answers.
Ben Williamson has lost a daughter. While studying abroad in Madrid,
Michelle Williamson was caught in a bombing by Basque separatists, a bombing
that killed her and several members of the Guardia Civil at a post in a
park. For Ben, this act of violence has left only questions, and at a moment
of despair he decides to seek out the reasons for Michelle's death. As Ben
begins to learn about the endless tensions beneath the surface of Spanish
culture, he finds that he wants someone to answer for his loss.
Ben's other daughter, Annie, is also wrestling with the loss of her
sister. When she follows her father to Spain, she finds a changed man.
Haunting and beautiful, House of the Deaf is the story of one man's brush
with terrorism and his quest to find answers.
But no one dies in the right place
Or in the right hour
And everyone dies sooner than his time
And before he reaches home.
—Reza Baraheni
Chapter 1
When Ben sensed they were getting close, he signaled the taxi
driver to let him off. Calle Isaac Peral, a strange name for a street in Madrid,
but for some reason names were important to him, and he wanted to get them
right. He paid the driver and tipped him fifty pesetas. Deliberately, as though
stepping off terrain, he continued on foot, passing a travel agency, a photocopy
center, a cafeteria with pastries in the window, a fitness center and a book
store. Across a narrow side street was a large gray hospital, Hospital Militar
Generalisimo Franco, that occupied much of the next block. Then a pharmacy, a
bar advertising comidas caseras, and a marblefaced apartment building.
If he’d been back in Lexington, Kentucky, where he lived, he
would not have been able to identify the neighborhood he was in ...
Herrin doesn't deliver easy answers, and the ending is somewhat ambiguous but nonetheless appropriate and satisfying...continued
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Lorrie Moore
Lamar Herrin has always written beautifully. Now, in a manner reminiscent of J. M. Coetzee, he looks at the effect of contemporary political violence on one particular family. House of the Deaf is a powerful, poetic, and suspenseful book. William Kennedy
Lamar Herrin redefines vengeance and innocence in House of the Deaf, a tale of political violence in which the life-blood of the spirit confronts the cold blood of the terrorist - a finely wrought novel of near-mystical dimension.Euskadi Ta Azkatasuna (ETA) stands for Basque Homeland and Freedom. The group seeks independence for seven regions in northern Spain and South-West France that they claim as their own. The ETA first appeared in the 1960s as a student resistance movement opposed to General Franco's military dictatorship (Franco banned the Basque language, suppressed their culture and had Basque intellectuals tortured for their beliefs).
Since Franco's death in 1975 Spain's Basque country now has more autonomy than
any other region in Spain, including its own parliament, police force, education
policies and ability to collect taxes, but hardline ETA members and supporters
remain determined to fight for full independence.
In recent years ...
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