Naming the Spirits - Hardcover

Thornton, Lawrence

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385475527 ISBN 13: 9780385475525

Publisher: Doubleday, 1995

Synopsis

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.
From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this title

From the Publisher:

In the sequel to his critically acclaimed, award-winning Imagining Argentina, Thornton returns to Argentina and the Dirty War. Narrated by the ghostly voices of eleven Desaparecidos, this is the story of a young massacre survivor and her extraordinary effect on the family that shelters her.

From the Back Cover:

"In Naming the Spirits, Lawrence Thornton writes beautifully and brilliantly. A totally absorbing -- and haunting -- book."

-- Alice Adams

"The novel has a dreamy, elegiac quality...it builds an atmosphere of quiet horror that eventually elicits a visceral response....Thornton again demonstrates his ability to personalize the dimensions of political mass murder."

-- Publishers Weekly

"Naming the Spirits is strong, direct, and resonant -- a moving story, a crucial bearing of witness."

-- Frederick Busch

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0385475527
• ISBN 13: 9780385475525
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 257