In these short stories, Dorfman writes of love and betrayal, of families broken apart by hope and fear, of personal lives invaded by political authority, and of men and women who long for privacy.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The title story of Chilean writer Dorfman's ( Mascara ) collection embodies, as dramatically and movingly as any of these 11 passionate, brilliant tales, their common theme of human distress under the Pinochet regime. With mingled terror and stoicism, a little boy braces for the imminent visitation of police-state authorities on his resisting family, and finds himself unable to trust or tell between friend and enemy. The stories bear forceful and yet subtle witness to the plight of a people mortally divided against itself. While stirring the reader on behalf of the ostensibly ordinary folk who risk everything to resist authoritarian rule, and others who bitterly capitulate in order to survive, Dorfman is also capable of conveying the personalities of three macho naval cadets on leave in San Francisco, whose brutish behavior is partially a result of their cultural conditioning. His capacity to inspire an ennobled moral sense of man is displayed in two superb tales, Reader and Titan , where the art of fiction itself becomes the means whereby men are enabled to transcend themselves heroically.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
These stories center around the overthrow of Chilean Marxist president Salvador Allende. The title story concerns two children who need to believe that the soldier entering their home to arrest their subversive parents is their uncle. The others are adult versions of this same need to grasp secure values in chaotic times--family stability ("Family Circle"), faith in divine justice against marital infidelity ("Lonely Hearts Column"), escape from prison against all odds ("Titan"). Unfortunately, Dorfman, while often poetic, is often verbose. His house may be on fire, but it fumes like the thirsty doctor in "Consultation" who awaits the glass of water his government captors have promised him while they take their time indulging their own concerns.
- Kenneth Mintz, formerly with Bayonne P.L., N.J.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Kenneth Mintz, formerly with Bayonne P.L., N.J.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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0 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
It was about, talked about military stuff.,
By A Customer
This review is from: My House Is on Fire (Hardcover)
I think the book was boring. I didn't like it one bit. All it talked about was military stuff. I don't like that. But it has some interesting stuff of what goes on under military servicing.
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