Tales From the Blue Archives

by Lawrence Thornton

In his instant classic Imagining Argentina, Larry Thornton galvanized American readers in his award-winning portrait of the lingering after-effects of Argentina's Dirty War. He continued his extraordinary saga in Naming the Spirits. Now he brings the trilogy to its mesmerizing climax in a haunting tale of family, love, and restitution.



For more than ten years, Dolores Masson has joined the women who march in Buenos Aires' great square in memory of the Disappeared--the legions of family and loved ones who vanished without a trace at the hands of the military regime during Argentina's Dirty War. And every week she visits the house where Carlos and Teresa Rueda sometimes offer mystical visions that locate the Disappeared. Dolores has nearly lost hope when Teresa one night utters the whereabouts of those Dolores has spent the last year in search of--the two infant grandsons who vanished without a trace when their mother was abducted.



This crystalline vision sets in motion an inexorable chain of events in which Dolores will regain custody of the boys, now teenagers, who have no memory of her or their parents; in which the general who masterminded their abduction will find his world imploding; and in which the only parents the boys have ever known will be torn apart by hatred, anger, and remorse. With the same breathtaking lyricism and emotional insight that made Imagining Argentina and Naming the Spirits unforgettable reading experiences for legions of readers, Tales from the Blue Archives shows one of our most gifted novelists at the height of his powers.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Magical Realism

288 pages, Hardcover

First published October 13, 1997

Reviews

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this one in two days. What an ending to the trilogy! This one almost reads like a suspense novel at times and keeps those pages turning. It flows much more smoothly than Naming the Spirits, which was very good but a bit choppy due to the many plot threads.

This story revolves around Dolores Masson, whose grandsons were taken away over thirteen years ago during the Dirty War. General Guzman gave the boys to a childless couple who obtained falsified birth certificates and have been living in hiding while raising the boys. General Guzman, one of the key players in the Proceso, has a larger role in this book. He represents those horrid murdering generals who received presidential pardons.

All these years later, Dolores still marches with the other women in the Plaza de Mayo, and still goes to the garden of Carlos Ruedas every Thursday night. She is very depressed but cannot give up hope. One night at this gathering, she receives the name of the town where Eduardo and Beatriz Ponce live with her grandsons. She sets the wheels in motion to get them back and have the adoptive parents prosecuted for their knowing complicity in the kidnaping.
There's a lot of tension in the story that really keeps you reading. You never know who's going to end up with the children, or how they'll behave around this grandmother they no longer remember.

I found the end of the book very moving. You get a glimpse of Thornton's motivation for telling these stories in something Dolores tells her grandsons:

"I tell them the only way to keep history alive is through memory and speech, that there's an implicit pardon in silence, that silence can be as evil as what it refuses to name."

In the end, after all the loss and mourning, we the see importance of finding consolation in solidarity; the importance of coming together to share the continuing sorrow, to keep hope alive, and to rejoice about the happier outcomes.

[Romy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lawrence Thornton's writing is beautiful and was the best part of the book. I also liked seeing a little but further into what happens to the characters we've met in the previous books of the trilogy. But this was the weakest book of the three, I thought. I had very much enjoyed Thornton's use of magical realism in the two previous books because of how it was both imaginative and believable - the essence of this South American "technique" of course. But there is much less of that here, none in fact, and without it the story is a bit flat. Instead the actions and reactions of some of the main characters - the Ponces - are hard to believe; and the other main character, Dolores Masson, even though she is in the right and is the injured party, I found pedantic and, by the end, unlikeable. A little bit of a deflated ending for a wonderful trilogy of books.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a gift to read Thornton’s writing. This final part in his trilogy is engrossing, beautiful and devastating.

[Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Argentina novel
South America
Grandma tries to find her kidnapped grandsons.
Don’t expect a happy ending.

[Kathryn Glenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this before I went to Argentina as part of my endeavor to learn about the history of the country. It is the story of two of the disappearance of thousands during the Dirty War of the 1970's and 80's and the effects on their children. Thousands are still unaccounted for and their mothers and grandmothers still protest their disapperance. When I visited Buenos Aires, it was interesting to see the "Madres de la Plaza de Mayo" on their weekly Thursday protest march after all these years. I did not think the book itself was very well written, but it was good to get a better grasp on Argentine history.

[Charisse · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved how this book played out. I loved how the birds, the earring traveled across books. A satisfying ending to the trilogy although I am very sad to see it end. Thank you Thank you Thank you to my fellow CLBBer's (Jeanette and Bob)who pointed me in Lawrence Thornton's direction.

[Sarah-Hope · Rating 5 out of 5]

Less hopeful than his first two books circling these themes, but honest, and certainly not hopeless.