A review by shaunagm
Purgatory by Tomás Eloy Martínez

Purgatory is a novel that only partially takes place during the Argentinian “Dirty War”, yet is inescapably about it. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the military dictatorship in Argentina (with the secret, quiet approval of the US government) “disappeared” thousands of activists, students, journalists, etc. Protagonist Emilia Dupuy, the quiet, apolitical daughter of an elite advisor to the dictator, and the widow of one of the desaparecidos, is a cartographer. “I met her because I’m interested in cartographers,” says the narrator/author, “who are very much like novelists in their determination to alter reality.” Emilia lives her entire life believing the improbable – that she will find her husband again. Purgatory plays with the stories we tell to survive when people disappear, and when love, community, and our own moral compasses disappear too.