The Ministry of Special Cases

by Nathan Englander (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2007

  $3.27

  Kaddish Poznan chips the names off gravestones for a living, removing traces of disreputable ancestors for their more respectable kin. His wife Lillian works in insurance, earning money when people live longer than they fear. Set in a tumultuous Buenos Aires on the cusp of a military coup, the couple's own turbulent relationship is held together by their role as parents dedicated to a teenage son. As Argentina's Dirty War unfolds around them, it threatens to overwhelm the infectious, mad energy of their lives. A visit to the dreaded Ministry of Special Cases soon turns their at times hilarious misadventures into something much darker.

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $3.27

  Kaddish Poznan chips the names off gravestones for a living, removing traces of disreputable ancestors for their more respectable kin. His wife Lillian works in insurance, earning money when people live longer than they fear. As Argentina's Dirty War unfolds around them, their sometimes hilarious misadventures are soon replaced by something much darker. A visit to the dreaded Ministry of Special Cases is only the start of Englander's stunning vision of a nation in the hold of corruption and torture, a place where absurdity, despair and hope are the end products of a bureaucracy run out of control.