Naming the Spirits

by Lawrence Thornton

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385475527
• ISBN13: 9780385475525
• Release Date: August 1995
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 257 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.9" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

A Gentle Story About "The Disappeared"

In "Naming the Spirits' Lawrence Thornton manages to tell the stories of Argentina's disappeared without overstating the torture and murder. He tells just enough to make the reader feel the fear and tension, without making you want to turn away. The story has a quiet, spiritual pace with different chapters narrated by different victims, survivors, and even murderers. While it took me a few chapters to figure out how the different stories were related , the narrations themselves were always fascinating. This is one of those books that you might not fully appreciate until the final pages when all the parts form a whole.