One family's attempt to deal with the death of two sons at the hands of a corrupt military regime in Argentina is the focus of the latest novel by UNLV English professor Douglas Unger.
"Voices from Silence," Unger's fourth novel, was released this month by St. Martin's Press.
In the book, Unger deals with the effort of one family both to come to terms with and seek justice for the loss of their sons who were counted among "the disappeared" during the reign of a ruthless military regime in Argentina during the 1970s.
"The disappeared" was the name given to the many thousands of Argentines who, because of their liberal political leanings, were snatched from homes, offices, and the streets. Thousands were imprisoned and some murdered. Because family and friends often had no idea what had happened to their loved ones, those missing were termed "the disappeared."
The book is set a decade later at the time when the generals involved in the atrocities were coming to trial for their crimes.
Unger closely based his book on the experiences of a real Argentine family with whom he lived as a high school exchange student. After Unger returned home to the United States, that family lost two of its three sons. The family never has learned what happened to one son; he simply disappeared one day never to be seen again. They learned the fate of the second son when his body was returned to them a year after his disappearance. Subsequently, they learned that he had been tortured to death.
The third son fled to France to escape a similar fate and remained in exile there for many years before it was safe for him to return to his homeland.
Unger, an associate professor of English at UNLV, calls the book "a novel of witness." He said he sought to tell the truth about the events in Argentina, but in a dramatic, compelling fashion.
Writing about the disappearance and death of his two Argentine "brothers" and about the devastating effect their deaths had on the family was a difficult task, he said.
"It was personally, for me, like a continual grieving process to write the book," Unger said. "On the other hand, now that it's completed, I feel that at least there's some sort of elegy and some sort of monument left behind to those people I love who are numbered among the disappeared."
This summer also has seen the reprinting of Unger's first novel, "Leaving the Land," by the University of Nebraska Press. Unger was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize when the book was published in 1984.
Unger's other novels are "El Yanqui" and "The Turkey War."
