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The Ministry of Special Cases

by Nathan Englander

3.55 · rating details · 1,284 ratings · 274 reviews

The long-awaited novel from Nathan Englander, author of For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. 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, The Ministry of Special Cases casts a power...more

Hardcover, 339 pages

Published April 24th 2007 by Knopf (first published January 1st 2007)

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Aug 02, 2008

G rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: middle-ground

Problematic. Englander is an adept, even-handed writer, but not an amazing stylist; worse, I never believed that the story was set in Argentina at all (it would have been better as a Kafka-esque "no place"), and I didn't find it as engaging as I would have hoped. But a good effort nonetheless.

Upon rereading, I was struck by many of the scenes but underwhelmed by the lack of cohesion - the whole was less than the sum of its parts.

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Jan 18, 2009

Susan rated it

I have been interested in “the disappeared” (Los Desaparecidos ) of Argentina since I visited that country in the mid-90ies several times and saw the mothers marching in the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada (pink house, president’s residence and seat of government). That’s what drew me to this book.
The setting is Buenos Aires in 1976. The main characters are Kaddish Poznan and his wife, Lillian. They are not only Jewish, but Kaddish is literally a hijo de puta (son of a whore) and...moreI have been interested in “the disappeared” (Los Desaparecidos ) of Argentina since I visited that country in the mid-90ies several times and saw the mothers marching in the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada (pink house, president’s residence and seat of government). That’s what drew me to this book.
The setting is Buenos Aires in 1976. The main characters are Kaddish Poznan and his wife, Lillian. They are not only Jewish, but Kaddish is literally a hijo de puta (son of a whore) and his “job” is defacing gravestones in the Jewish cemetery for whores and pimps for their descendents who want to erase their past, free their identity from the stain of their ancestors. And erasing the past and transforming identity are major themes in the novel. Lillian is a more conventional Jew, belonging to the “respectable” Jewish congregation. She works for an insurance agent, actually the main support of the family. Kaddish and Lillian have a son, Pato, who’s a university student. Kaddish and Pato battle constantly. On the day that Pato is arrested, Kaddish in his fury tells his son he wishes he’d never been born.
Kaddish and Lillian are both devastated at the arrest of their son, especially as they realize no official of the government will admit that Pato is even in custody or in fact ever existed. They handle their grief and frustration so entirely differently that the conflict between them deepens. Lillian assumes there are government channels one has to go through to get information. She soon knows every police station in the city intimately and sits every day at the Ministry of Special Cases hoping for a hearing. Kaddish’s strategy is less straightforward. In one of the more hilarious (in a book that’s basically painfully tragic) incidents of the book, before his son disappears, Kaddish is owed money by a plastic surgeon whose family graves he has “disappeared”. The doctor convinces him to accept payment in kind and Kaddish negotiates nose jobs for himself, Lillian and Pato. Pato refuses—not wanting to change his identity. Kaddish volunteers to go first and gets a first rate job; Lillian, whom he was trying to protect by going first, gets an intern and her new nose falls off and has to be redone—which Kaddish manages to badger the doctor into doing. Changing the nose, especially for a Jew, is tantamount to changing identity; Lillian, who is now beautiful, is devastated when a policeman to whom she shows a picture of her son, says it can’t be her son with that big nose.
A Kaddish is a prayer in the Jewish liturgy and the term is especially associated with a prayer of mourning. Both the history of Argentina of this period and Kaddish’s name warn the reader that Pato will never be found alive. Students and intellectuals were targeted by the regime and most often “disappeared”. Kaddish eventually encounters a navigator who, full of guilt in his role, tells him how the regime disposes of the disappeared, pushing them out of airplanes into the river delta. That convinces Kaddish that Pato is dead, but when he goes to the rabbi to arrange a funeral, it seems that Jewish practice doesn’t allow that without a body. Lillian throws him out because he won’t keep the faith that Pato is alive and coming back. She has met a priest roaming the Ministry of Special Cases who tells her that a great amount of money can buy information about the disappeared and sometimes even a release. Pato, not believing in her solution but realizing he can’t live her lie and can’t live without her goes back to the plastic surgeon who advises him to kidnap someone himself and demand a ransome. That Kaddish’s conscience cannot tolerate but he can “ply his trade” and steal the bones of a prominent family from the famous Recoleta cemetery [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Recoleta_Cemetery] and hold those for ransome…
This novel was not entirely successful. The marriage of Jewish tradition and Argentinean history of the 1970ies just doesn’t work. The saga of a disappeared son is too painful to be contemplated, and Englander doesn’t succeed completely moving the reader from the literal events to the larger concepts he seems to be trying for. There is no ending to Pato’s story—the mothers still march in the Plaza de Mayo (which practice is not, by the way, featured in the novel)—as the reader knows neither he nor his body will be found and that tragedy trumps all the richness and the humor of Kaddish and Lillian’s story.
(less)

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Dec 23, 2008

Nate rated it

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jun 20, 2008

Erika Jo rated it

· review of another edition

Once again, a hip, young, Jewish, Brooklyn-ish* novelist. I told myself to take it slowly, reading them consecutively would be like lighting one cigarette off the back of another. Don't even get me started on my decision to read an excellent poetry book by the 24-year-old Tao Lin directly following this read (inspiring a "Fuck You, Tao/Tao Lin Jealousy Poem"). I was prompted to read this book from a laudatory review in Poets and Writers of Englander's debut collection of short stories,...moreOnce again, a hip, young, Jewish, Brooklyn-ish* novelist. I told myself to take it slowly, reading them consecutively would be like lighting one cigarette off the back of another. Don't even get me started on my decision to read an excellent poetry book by the 24-year-old Tao Lin directly following this read (inspiring a "Fuck You, Tao/Tao Lin Jealousy Poem"). I was prompted to read this book from a laudatory review in Poets and Writers of Englander's debut collection of short stories, and the anticipatory seven-years it took for him to write another piece. Enough of this half-baked editorializing.

An interesting piece of historical fiction, set during Argentina's Dirty War in 1976. It is a fertile topic, made more complex by the protagonist's paranoid Jewishness, doubly so by his pariah status as Jewish outcast (as a hijo de puta). By protagonist, I mean the father (aptly named "Kaddish") of a dysfunctional three person family. The son, a bright university student, gets disappeared and the couple struggle to cope in different ways. I was impressed by Englander's depiction of a somewhat unsexy set-up, a middle-aged squabbling pair of Yids, who consistently fail in all things logistical (minus the mother, Lillian, the breadwinner, who works - ironically (!) in insurance).

The plot's pace is compelling, but the piece overall is bottom-heavy, squishing all the rich symbolism towards the end in a series of somewhat-forced meaningful revelations. Arguments between son and father are painful - clearly, these are two people who communicate in very different ways - but I felt it was at times relentless and sloppily done: the father is missing a father and so doesn't know how to be a father (tada!), the grass-smoking, free-thinking son is part of an expressive new generation (zing!), sometimes love requires pain (ouch!). Regardless, it is an accomplished, vivid novel but I don't think it's the masterwork Englander may be capable of as his craft matures.

*I realize Chabon was born in DC and lives in Berkeley. Consider it "metropolitan" if you must. (less)

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Oct 19, 2007

Eric rated it

Like Chabon's "The Yiddish Policemen's Union," this is the tale of hard-boiled Jewish protagonist trying to make sense of a world that is rapidly deteriorating around him. But while Chabon went for affect and genre mimicry, Englander goes for a more soulful approach—the results are both more sober and more satisfying. Yet, Englander's book is far from perfect. There's not a whole lot going on during a long central act, and uninterrupted anguish can be as numbing as riveting. For a book...more

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Sep 01, 2007

Michele rated it

Recommends it for: you

As I just finished this, it may take me a while to process my exact thoughts. There isn't a lot of florid description here of Argentina in the 70s or the Jewish community of Buenos Aires at that time, and yet the author still managed to make both these seem very present, despite never being wholly unveiled at any one point.

The protagonist is a pariah, neither at home in his community nor outside of it, and he is deeply troubled and morally defiant about it. A similar struggle marks t...more

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Jul 29, 2007

Wendy rated it

I wanted to like this book more. Really. The setting of the book -- the "dirty war" in Argentina, when so many young people disappeared, seemed particularly interesting. But I found it a bit too heavy handed for me. The main character is engaged, for example, of erasing the sordid past of the Jewish communty (though it's a past that he, alone, seeks to remember). Plus his name, Kaddish, is the Jewish prayer for remembering the dead. Then his son is "disappeared" by the gover...more

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Aug 27, 2007

Jacquelyn rated it

I didnt think I would like this book as much as I did--it got so much press before it came out that I thought it was too good to be true. But, it ended up being a really compelling story about a jewish family in Argentina during the dirty war. Their son gets "disappeared" and they have no one to turn to b/c of their status in society--b/c of their past even the jewish community wont help them. There is not a ton of dialogue, which really creates the mood that everything is being watch...more

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Oct 14, 2008

Blake rated it

· review of another edition

A pretty good book on an interesting topic (Argentina's "Dirty War") and one family's emotional journey through it, the author does a great job of developing the characters' emotional states while keeping the overall tone very light-hearted. But looking back, the primary action takes place in the last 1/3 of the book and I can't really remember much what took place leading up to that other than just broad development.

All in all a good read that turns great when the story fi...more

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Feb 10, 2011

Lizzy added it · review of another edition

This review was written by Judith Ruderman and posted by Lizzy Mottern

As the New Yorker observed in introducing its recent “20 under forty” series, “the fiction being written in this country today is not necessarily fiction set in this country.” A prime example of such fiction is The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander. To my mind it is among the best of American contemporary novels, and I nominated it for the summer reading project for the class of ‘15. The book takes pla...more

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Apr 10, 2011

Lane rated it

· review of another edition

Not an easy read because of the context (torture and disappearances in the aftermath of the Argentinan coupe in the 70's), but I was somewhat prepared as I had read his book of short stories, "For the Relief of Unbearable Urges" (which I highly recommend). After I finished the book I watched a few brief video interviews with the author, Nathan Englander, and one of his comments was that he needs to write a "pressurized novel." His apparent meaning is that, in this case, he ...more

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Sep 13, 2009

jordan rated it

Nathan Englander's short story collection, "For the Relief of Unbearable Urges" received accolades and awards when it debuted five years ago, all well deserved. Now, after five-years, Englander offers his first novel, "The Ministry of Special Cases." If any thought that the fresh pathos laden voice of "Relief" was a fluke, "Ministry" will surely set them straight.

First, a brief review of the plot. The place is Argentina in the 70's under the re...more

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May 21, 2009

Stephanie rated it

Shelves: immigrant-lit

A RATHER grim sense of humour is one of the hallmarks of Jewish American
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.

In their footsteps comes Nathan Englander, born into an Orthodox Jewish family in upstate New York. He made a splash with his first book, a collection of short stories titled For The Relief Of Unbea...more

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Jan 16, 2011

Natalia Pì rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, americalatina

I found this book very good, and very sad. Set in Buenos Ayres in the 1970's, it starts by telling us the everyday life of a Jewish family: mother, father and son, with all the everyday contrasts that are typical in a family with a young son who seems to be growing apart from his parents.
Then something happens, and through the story of this family, Englander tries to imagine how it must have been for people during the Argentinian dictatorship, what hopes and fears they felt in a time where ...more

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Dec 06, 2010

Ann rated it

A heartbreaking narrative that follows the nightmare world of a husband and wife who just lost their only son to Argentina's military junta. Thirty-thousand students disappeared in 1970's Brazil, you no one admitted it was happening. So Kaddish and Lillian work at cross purposes as they attempt to find out what happened. Lillian takes the accepted way of visiting jails and talking to bureaucrats who contend her son never existed. Kaddish turns to the underworld and hears horrible tales of studen...more

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Sep 10, 2009

Karen rated it

· review of another edition

Even though I did not love this book in the way I loved Nathan Englander's short story collection, I have to say that there were several things I really liked about this book. First of all, it was a topic that I am familiar with, even though reading non-fiction accounts of this period in Argentina's history has always been too much for me emotionally. I owe Mr. Englander respect for the fact that he got me to read a novel about this (and pretty quickly!) without once breaking down. In addition t...more

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Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it

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 larger story about terrorist regimes and asks universal questions about remembering the dead, dealing with evil, and addressing assimilation, love, ritual, and generational gaps. Most reviewers praised t

...more

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Aug 28, 2011

Jane rated it

My rating "didn't like it" doesn't mean I think this is not a well-written, perhaps even a brilliant, book. I just couldn't take it. The combination of Jewish humor/style and the horror of the Peron regime in Argentina was simply too much for me. The books is about a hundred kinds of disappearances. It begins with "disappearing" the names of the disreputable Jews in an Argentinian cemetery. This is Kaddish's job. He is a prostitute's son and works chipping away at the names ...more

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Aug 06, 2011

Jayne Charles rated it

A profoundly depressing and harrowing story set in 1970s Argentina where people are disappearing, never to be seen again, and the authorities are denying that anything is wrong.

The novel follows Jewish couple Kaddish and Lillian as they search for their nineteen year old son, and as the months go by the desperation sets in. It is a stifling experience, page after page in their company as they head up blind alleys and come up against bureaucracy time and time again, but in terms of inv...more

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Jan 04, 2010

Fionnuala rated it

A failure, but an interesting failure. Englander tries to pull off a tragicomedy about Argentina's Dirty War, and almost does it. Let down by a couple of overworked metaphors (the nose stuff gets a bit much), over-artsy descriptions (the falling general embodies every creative writing cliché) and some clunky authorial interventions (Englander doesn't need to tell us why he isn't revealing the content of the missing son's notes - the silence would have said so much more than his narratorial jus...more

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Dec 06, 2008

Becky rated it

· review of another edition

as a latin american studies major, i was particularly drawn to this novel about a jewish couple whose only child is "disappeared" during the argentine dirty war, but you really don't need any background in the subject matter to appreciate the story. the general plot is foreseeable, but the details are rich and unexpected, and englander has a really pretty writing style (although his dialogue is a bit unrealistic -- his characters talk just like the narrator). i was expecting this book ...more

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Apr 03, 2011

Alison rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Things are never looking up when you finish a book and think, Well, I didn't hate it...

The are two problems that I see with this book: the setting and the characters. First, the setting. It is not at all accessible for the average American reader (or even one with a history degree). I have no background in Argentina whatsoever, and found it very difficult then to navigate the setting, both time and place. I didn't get a good sense of what the place looked like; the apartment, yes, but ...moreThings are never looking up when you finish a book and think, Well, I didn't hate it...

The are two problems that I see with this book: the setting and the characters. First, the setting. It is not at all accessible for the average American reader (or even one with a history degree). I have no background in Argentina whatsoever, and found it very difficult then to navigate the setting, both time and place. I didn't get a good sense of what the place looked like; the apartment, yes, but not Argentina. In terms of time, I wasn't sure what details the author pulled from history and what details he created. This might not seems important given that it's a work of fiction, but I like to know where I stand. Take Inglorious Basterds for example. That movie is set in World War II, true. But it involves an Apache-like gang of Jewish American soldiers hunting and killingr Nazis. Not so historically accurate. I don't care that it's not, I just like to kno that. And with WWII I do, because I know that time and place well enough most Americans reading this type of fiction probably do. But I question how many know Argentina, and I wonder if the book wouldn't hae benefited from a historical introduction? Or if something like that I even ever done.

Second, the characters. I did not sympathize with anyone. I thought Pato was an asshole kid; I thought Kaddish was a loser; I thought Lillian was delusional, even with good reason. I just could not identify with any of them in really any way, and there was an aloofness about the narrator that I think made it worse I did not feel this was for his short stories, so thats why I question the narrator.

There were some good points, of course. I thought the third part was very well written, especially the scene with the girl who occupies Pato's former cell. That was exceptionally well done. I also thought, even though I didn't like therm much, the characters were well developed and consistent, with a detail you don't really find in many characters, especially the minor ones like the Doctor or the general's wife.

My last major bone to pick was the ending. I know I know - let the author decide. And usually I go with that. But the book is about a kid being abducted, first and foremost, so I reallly would have liked to find out what happened. Instead, much like Kaddish and Lillian, the author is given two scenarios to choose from: believe the priest, and Patos alive but out of reach for lack of money. Believe the navigator, and Pato is long since dead, and there's nothing anyone could have done about it. That's fine for them, but given I am the reader, I wanted to know!

That said, I do think the author did a good job with a difficult task. I look forward to reading more of his work.(less)

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Aug 29, 2009

Corny rated it

I probably did not appreciate this book in the fullest manner because I did not have a clear understanding of the background in Argentina during the 70s and 80s when the Junta took charge. Nevertheless, this extraordinary look at a couple facing the loss of its only son is universal in scope. Sometimes black, sometimes very touching, the narrative reveals the hopelessness of finding the "disappeared." The indomitable spirit of Lilian and the unending schemes of her husband Kaddish come...more

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Mar 05, 2009

Julie rated it

This is a great book. Very powerful, more so than I expected it to be. It was interesting to read this one immediately after "Artificial Respiration," because Englander's novel is all about the story of one particular family (while Piglia's is much more theoretical and goes out of its way to deliberately not mention the specific political context, this book is *all* about the specifics, as horrifying as they may be). The first chapter was confusing (so much for the rave on the back cov...more

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Jan 08, 2009

Angel rated it

Hated it!

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 served as a symbol of how Jews have been treated in various places throughout history.

Still, I found the writing sloppy and unfocused and I didn't find the story compelling. I prefer subtlety i...more

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Dec 27, 2010

Ellen rated it

Upon reflection, I decided this book deserves the fourth star. Yes, the story is very heavy, but the writing is so well done that credit has to be given where it is due.

This is a three and a half. On one hand, Nathan Englander writes beautifully. He has a gift of using a few words to sum up a character or a situation perfectly, and his writing has a lot of subtle humor in it. The problem is that the book is about a very painful subject--the thousands of people, primarily young ...more

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Nov 13, 2008

Mindy rated it

Fascinating piece of fiction about the Dirty War in Argentina. Descriptions of Buenos Aires incite wanderlust, despite the gritty subject matter. Also interesting historical novel about Jews in Argentina. Loved it.

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Jul 29, 2011

Catherine Woodman added it

Very dark tale of the Dissappeared in Argentina's dirty war--the son who is spirited away is very much the youth who is clueless as to what is about to happen to him, his parents try to save him byt getting rid of the books that may put him at peril, but do not get rid of them all, and he is whisked away--one of them believes he is dead from the beginning and the other cannot let go of hope--so the dichotomy between which the story swings tells of the ends of the Bell curve. I had watched Imagi...more

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Mar 19, 2010

David rated it

eBook- As soon as I finished this book I began to ask this question: How did a kid from New York write such a compelling story of Argentina and the 1970's/80's Dirty War? Ironically, I had also just finish a novel set in Argentina (it shall remain nameless and goodreads-less) by a young Seattle based author that was so horrible, and so offensive that I actually had to finish it just to see how badly an American could write about a foreign country.

Englander has written a tremendou...more

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Jun 22, 2011

Sarah Pascarella rated it

· review of another edition

Englander's 10-year labor of love focuses on the Poznan family, Kaddish, Lillian, and son Pato, living in Buenos Aires in the late 70s at the height of civil unrest. After the insurgent coup, Pato is disappeared during Argentina's Dirty War, and the novel follows what happens to Kaddish and Lillian as they alternately cling to and push each other away in the hunt to find their son. The fictionalized circumstances are based on real-life events that even Orwell would grapple with, and Englander's ...more

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About Nathan Englander

Nathan Englander is a Jewish-American author born in Long Island, NY in 1970. He wrote the short story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., in 1999. The volume won widespread critical acclaim, earning Englander the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Malamud Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kauffman Prize, and established him as an important write...more

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