In an extremely well crafted first novel, Gloria Lisé has put a human face on the story of 30,000 "disappeared" people who lost their lives from 1976-1983 in Argentina. The military government which took over Isabel Peron's country proceeded to eliminate anyone felt to be a threat to their position. A lawyer and professor, Lisé must have been tempted to add yet another non-fiction account to a historical tragedy, but in this finely tuned work of fiction she manages to show the impact the government's hunting of dissenters has on one family and as a result show the human toll that numbers cannot reflect.
We follow the incidents surrounding Berta, a young woman studying to be a doctor who watches her lover thrown to his death from a balcony. A union organizer, he was rumored to have money set aside. Government officials think Berta may have it, and she is forced to flee her family and city to go to relatives she barely knows in the country. Where Lisé avoids another hero/heroine surviving the chaos of the times is by placing her main character in a serene, slow-paced setting. While all around her the country reels, in her ancestral home she finds safety and at times peace.
But, of course, no family is without history either, and here Berta learns more of where she has come from and how she fits in her own tradition. She does not escape her own tainted past as she meets the Indians her family has forced into a small area of existence. She sees other current concerns as she travels with the Armenian midwife and learns of the miracle of birth in an area with little access to medicine. She learns of the personal failings and misfortunes of her own family, placing her own struggles in perspective.
Lisé's style is sparse, clean, and confident. She trusts her story enough to avoid creating judgments, instead letting the reader draw their own conclusions. At times, the chapters seem to jump, but it becomes clear she is creating a backdrop for the world in which Berta finds herself. Early on we get a chapter entitled "This is My Family," and these are augmented later by character sketches in "Aunt Avelina," "Tristan Nepomuceno," "Lusaper Gregorian," and other chapters. Lisé brings to these characters a believable fullness which shows the lives of others trying to survive in a world turned upside down. Many of them survive quite well since they are comfortable with themselves and have seen other difficult times. Lusaper Gregorian, the midwife, is a refugee from the Turkish massacre of the Armenians, so her take on what is occurring is always influenced by what she has survived. These people also create a context for Berta and for how we view Berta.
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