This is the second book I’ve read in the last month that’s been dissed by critics complaining of language that’s too heightened. And a visit to a museum containing the bones of the dead has a powerful impact on Anne. Strangers reveal the intimate details of Pol Pot’s terror and the toll it’s taken on them. Small kindnesses take on huge significance. But Echlin is equally skilled at portraying the effects of trauma on the human spirit. When he decides to return to Cambodia after the fall of Pol Pot, Anne is devastated, until she believes she’s seen his image on TV and decides to find him.Įchlin’s pristine prose – there’s a poet in there somewhere – evokes the pull of eros as Anne searches for the man she loves in one of the world’s most dangerous places. He’s loving and passionate, but there seems to be a hole inside him that Anne can’t quite fathom, and he’s not giving her much information about the life he left. The Disappeared is a terribly sad book, but it really couldn’t be any other way.Īnne begins an affair with Cambodian musician Serey while she’s still in high school in Montreal. THE DISAPPEARED by Kim Echlin (Hamish Hamilton), 235 pages, $29 cloth.
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