A review by wendyclinch
The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander

3.0

I wanted to like this book more. Really. The setting of the book -- the "dirty war" in Argentina, when so many young people disappeared, seemed particularly interesting. But I found it a bit too heavy handed for me. The main character is engaged, for example, of erasing the sordid past of the Jewish communty (though it's a past that he, alone, seeks to remember). Plus his name, Kaddish, is the Jewish prayer for remembering the dead. Then his son is "disappeared" by the government, effectively erasing HIS past, which he runs around trying to regain. And he gets a nose job, even more reinforcing the idea that his past is gone.

I did find his son's disappearance troubling, and he and his wife's efforts to get him back heart-rending. The writing is good, too,