Hades, Argentina by Daniel Loedel

A fast - or very fast - reader, I am slowed down only by books who are playing a very human cord. I am used with terror and wars and disappearances. But it comes a moment in life when you have enough. You don´t want to read about it either in real life or in fictional realities. 

I started Hades, Argentina by Daniel Loedel somewhere in September 2023, probably. Maybe a bit earlier. And I took a break doing some extra research. Then, October 2023 happened and there were more pressing cruel realities to deal with. It didn´t change too much since, but I already reviewed recently other books about the Argentinian Dirty War. And this book was still at the same place at the bottom of the Tower of Babel of TBR books until few days ago I decided that it is about time to continue the lecture, no matter how fed up with horrors my heart is. 

I´ve faced the cruelty of the Dirty War many years ago, when I delved into the Cold War episodes outside Europe. Between 1976 and 1983, US-backed military dictatorship killed and kidnapped tens of thousands of dissidents, many of them young people, in the name of fighting the communism. Afterwards, only the members of the junta themselves were put in prison, but many ofc the rapists and torturers are free until today. They may meet their victims in one of the beautiful cafes in Buenos Aires.

People disappeared, corpses were disposed from airplanes in Rio de la Plata or the Atlantic Ocean. Children of victims were sent to adoption, sometimes ending up as adoptive sons or daughters of those who killed their parents. It is a terrible trauma that afected in a way or another almost every Argentinian family.

Daniel Loedel wrote the book inspired by his own family story: his sister disappeared during the junta. Tomas Orilla, the main character of the book, was 21 when he entered a bizarre game of love and death. A game that only the pure and naive hearts can play: for the sake of his sweetheart love, who is involved with the rebels, he get a job in an illegal detention center, helped by the Colonel, a family acquintance. His aim is to spy for the rebels, hoping that he will get her back. But the world of adults has horrific rules. ´I´m afraid it´s going to break me, Isa´, he confessed, when it was already too late. There are mistakes of the youth, of course, but no young soul should be faced with such choices.

Few years later, after living for years in NYC, under a fake name, he is back confronting the ghosts. All of them - his mother, the Colonel, Isa, people he worked with at the detention center. They may continue the story stopped by his departure, but somehow it is difficult to distinguish between time past and time present.

I felt at times that I am very much missing enough details to understand Tomas´ personality. For instance, it is mentioned only once that he is Jewish, but there are no other information in this respect. 

Nevertheless, Hades, Argentina is an exceptional story showing the tragic randomness of cruel history into everyday life. May humans be spared by the touch of history.

Rating: 4 stars