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 It can happen here
In retrospect, I am reminded of Sinclair Lewis's novel It Can't Happen Here, a broadly told story of the takeover of America and the suppression of its once-free press by a brutal police regime.
Well, it can happen here (witness the subtle and not-so-subtle progress during the George W. Bush regime), and it did happen in Argentina and other Latin American countries, i.e., the disappearance of our children who speak out, however covertly, against the violent tactics of a dictatorship.
The astonishing task that Nathan Englander has accomplished, after years of research, sets the story of such a disappearance within an impoverished Argentinian Jewish family. The parents of the young man who "disappears" are described as much by their language as by their actions. That the story puts a lower-class Jewish spin with graveyard humor on the story, one shared by tens of thousands of mostly Christian Latin American families, is simply the mechanism by which the author can best infuse humanity into the events that unfold.
One thinks of Kafka as the book progresses from logical, increasingly more frantic inquiries to frightening encounters with a brutal, secretive faux "Ministry of Special Cases" that alleges it can determine the whereabouts of missing people and return them to their families. The Ministry is but a cruel hoax, and violence spills over into the lives of the parents who are left bereft, the father to coax out of his sources the likely fate of his beloved son.
This is powerful writing, sensitive, informed, remarkable. This is a great book with unforgettable characters.
A heartbreaking book of loss
Kaddish Poznan is a desecrator of Jewish graves. However, he defaces the headstones of the long dead on request of their still living relatives. In a world where being Jewish or descended from a Jewish family is a hinderance Kaddish's work prospers. Kaddish (named after the Jewish prayer for the dead) is viewed with contempt not only by the people who hire him to do thier dirty work but also by his son.
It is 1976, the outset of Argentina's "Dirty War," in which nearly 30,000 students, union members and political opponents were "disappeared" by the military government. But Kaddish does not know this. Simple as a resident of Chelm his major concern is his battle for authority over his unruly child. He wants the boy to see that his father's abhorred profession fills their family belly. But the Junta is in action and Kaddish's life is soon affected as are thousands of families in Argentina. His wife, Lillian's slow disintegration after the disappearance of her child is vividly drawn as is Kaddish's desperation. This is a hearbreaking book of parents torn apart by the loss of their sons and daughters. It is is a beatifully written book whose lyrical language and horror will touch your heart with the grief no parent should have to endure. And this is all the worse for being based in fact, for being something that the world has so easily forgotten. Even today mothers and fathers in Argentina are demanding to know what happened to their children and this novel brings their sorrow quite shatteringly into the light.
Funny and heartbreaking
I really admire what Nathan Englander accomplishes in this book. He manages to hold together an almost slapstick comic tone while delivering a heartbreaking story. Even though the character's are presented at arm's length and are to a degree types, and even though his use of symbolism strays from the realistic (Kaddish literally erasing people's identities from gravestones and the nose reduction surgery as a metaphor for the Argentine dictatorship's erasure of people and the erasure of Jewish identity), I still felt moved by their fates. I was hesitant to read the book because I worried it would be too sad, or filled with descriptions of human rights abuses I didn't think I was up to reading at the time. But I found it hard to put the book down, and I found myself laughing much more than I expected given the themes and historical setting. I have friends who much prefer Nathan Englander's short stories to this novel, but my opinion is the opposite. While I find his stories hit or miss, this book is daring and a real achievement. I'm really looking forward to seeing what this author writes in the future.
Engaging Unlike the Norm
Englander's first novel (2nd book) is a novel written by a writer of promising talent. His first book earned him a PEN/Malamund Award and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
In 'Ministry', the character development of Kaddish, Lillian and their son, Pato, is strong, likable and enduring. Although the story is tragic in theme, it is still engaging and hard to put down. After a while you wonder constantly about the outcome and it keeps the pages turning.
In reading this book you feel like you're in Buenos Aires during the 'Dirty War' and you feel a dichotomy of absolute desparation and hope. If you have the ability to be taken away to a different place in time then you will enjoy this story. If you prefer a plot with a domestic or more timely theme then I'd suggest skipping this one.
As a parent I feel the character's love of their son and their willingness to do anything to see him alive again. As a reader I'm glad to be introduced to such a fine and promising talent.
 a slow start, but then explosive
Englander's novel starts off at a slow chug, and during the first third of the novel there is the strong impulse to put it down (which is death to a book). Were it not for Englander's accolades, I probably would have thrown a shovel full of dirt on it; but thankfully the novel picks up its sluggish pace after the dawdling start, and fully rewards the reader with a novel of deep understanding of what it is to be a human being and a Jew, a father and a mother, and a citizen in a state where nothing but raw power matters, where human life is discounted and people discarded. A moving account of a scary time in the history of Argentina, Englander weaves many images of Jewish identity and death in fascinating ways.
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