The Ministry of Special Cases

Zusatztext “Who is this Nathan Englander! so young in novelist years! but already possessed of an old masters voice?... One reads this novel in awe of Englander's talent. — The New York Times Book Review “A mesmerizing rumination on loss and memory.” — Los Angeles Times “[A] tour-de-force…. A few pages into The Ministry of Special Cases ! it becomes clear how much [Englander] has to bring to the topic: pitch-black humor! a skeptical affection for his characters! and the narrative ability to trace the impact of fascism-with-a-modern-face on a cluster of lives.” — The Seattle Times Informationen zum Autor Nathan Englander Klappentext From its unforgettable opening scene in the darkness of a forgotten cemetery in Buenos Aires, the debut novel from the Pulitzer-nominated, bestselling author of For the Relief of Unbearable Urges 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. 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, a terrifying, byzantine refuge of last resort. Through the devastation of a single family, Englander brilliantly captures the grief of a nation. Leseprobe [One] Jews bury themselves the way they live, crowded together, encroaching on one another's space. The headstones were packed tight, the bodies underneath elbow to elbow and head to toe. Kaddish led Pato through uneven rows over uneven ground on the Benevolent Self side. He cupped his hand over the eye of the flashlight to smother the light. His fingers glowed orange, red in between, as he ran his fist along the face of a stone. They were searching for Hezzi Two-Blades' grave, and finding it didn't take long. His plot rose up sharply. His marker tipped back. It looked to Kaddish as if the old man had tried to claw his way free. It also looked like Two-Blades' daughter had only to wait another winter and she wouldn't have needed to hire Kaddish Poznan at all. Marble, Kaddish had discovered, is chiseled into not for its strength but for its softness. As with the rest of the marble in the graveyard of the Society of the Benevolent Self, Hezzi's marker was pocked and cracked, the letters wearing away. Most of the others were cut from granite. If nature and pollution didn't get to those, the local hooligans would. In the past, Kaddish had scrubbed away swastikas and cemented back broken stones. He tested the strength of the one over Two-Blades' grave. "Like taking a swing at a loose tooth," Kaddish said. "I don't even know why we bother--a little longer and no sign of this place will remain." But Kaddish and Pato both knew why they bothered. They understood very well why the families turned to them with such urgency now. It was 1976 in Argentina. They lived with uncertainty and looming chaos. In Buenos Aires they'd long suffered kidnap and ransom. There was terror from all quarters and murder on the rise. It was no time to stand out, not for Gentile or Jew. And the Jews, almost to a person, felt that being Jewish was already plenty different enough. Kaddish's clients were the ones who had what to lose, the respectable, successful segment of their community that didn't have in its families such a reputable past. In quieter times it had been enough to ignore and deny. When the last of the generation of the Benevolent Self had gone silent, when all the plots on their side were full, the descendants waited what they thought was a decent amount of time for an indecent bunch and sealed up that graveyard for good. When he went to visit his mother's grave and found the gate locked, Kaddish turned to the other children of the ...

Product details

• Authors: Nathan Englander
• Publisher: Vintage USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.04.2008
• EAN: 9780375704444
• ISBN: 978-0-375-70444-4
• No. of pages: 352
• Dimensions: 107 mm x 178 mm x 18 mm
• Series: Vintage International; Vintage International
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature