false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1256167435m/1589797.jpg 29791 10 The long-awaited novel from Nathan Englander, author of <i>For the Relief of Unbearable Urges</i>. Englander’s wondrous and much-heralded collection of stories won the 2000 Pen/Malamud Award and was translated into more than a dozen languages. From its unforgettable opening scene in the darkness of a forgotten cemetery in Buenos Aires, <i>The Ministry of Special Cases</i> casts a powerful spell. In the heart of Argentina’s Dirty War, Kaddish Poznan struggles with a son who won’t accept him; strives for a wife who forever saves him; and spends his nights protecting the good name of a community that denies his existence -- and denies a checkered history that only Kaddish holds dear. When the nightmare of the disappeared children brings the Poznan family to its knees, they are thrust into the unyielding corridors of the Ministry of Special Cases, the refuge of last resort. Nathan Englander’s first novel is a timeless story of fathers and sons. In a world turned upside down, where the past and the future, the nature of truth itself, all take shape according to a corrupt government’s whims, one man -- one spectacularly hopeless man -- fights to overcome his history and his name, and, if for only once in his life, to put things right. Here again are all the marvelous qualities for which Englander’s first book was immediately beloved: his exuberant wit and invention, his cosmic sense of the absurd, his genius for balancing joyfulness and despair. Through the devastation of a single family, Englander captures, indelibly, the grief of a nation. <i>The Ministry of Special Cases</i>, like Englander’s stories before it, is a celebration of our humanity, in all its weakness, and -- despite that -- hope. 30211 24 4 2007 The Ministry of Special Cases total:793|5:120|4:291|3:292|2:72|1:18| 793 2802 1371 193 3 2 false false Sat May 12 16:41:15 -0700 2007 Sat Aug 02 22:50:15 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 2 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 18 08:46:37 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 18 08:47:00 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 1 false true Mon Dec 22 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Oct 08 22:41:00 -0700 2008 Tue Dec 23 00:37:12 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Fri Jun 20 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 05 09:27:38 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 20 13:16:33 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Sep 07 13:00:26 -0700 2007 Fri Oct 19 09:29:45 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 01 20:27:03 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 01 11:56:09 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 08 16:02:31 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 29 16:07:33 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Jun 05 08:29:56 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 27 16:11:10 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Tue Oct 14 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 01 16:44:41 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 14 13:24:00 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Sep 13 20:38:44 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 13 20:38:53 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu May 21 12:04:08 -0700 2009 Thu May 21 12:04:08 -0700 2009 literature. Writers like Philip Roth and Saul Bellow made their names kvetching about the human condition, the shadow of the Holocaust in the not-so-ancient past informing the neuroses of their New World progeny.

...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Sep 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 02 18:18:19 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 10 18:20:44 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:44:13 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:44:13 -0800 2009 Eight years ago Nathan Englander published his acclaimed short story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. He brings the same historical profundity to his first novel. While focusing on the pessimistic Kaddish, whose name honors the dead, and his optimistic wife, Englander tells a much lar...

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I read half this novel and couldn't stand to read anymore. I premise is actually pretty interesting to me. It's about a Jewish family in Argentina in which the son is disappeared. it's a story of what happened in Argentina during that time but the "disappearing" also ser...more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Nov 13 20:20:17 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 13 20:24:15 -0800 2008 2 0 false false Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 03 12:01:18 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 03 12:07:07 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Sep 30 12:39:56 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 30 12:39:56 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=1589797