Bookverdict.com

Demasiados heroes. (Too Many Heroes) Restrepo, Laura. Colombia/Spain: Alfaguara: Santillana. 2009. 260p. ISBN 978-16039-6642-9. pap. $21.99. FICTION In her first novel since the best-selling Delirio, winner of the Alfaguara prize in 2004, Colombian author Restrepo explores the legacy of the Argentinean dictatorship of 1976-83. Lorenza, a middle-aged Colombian writer, and her teenage son, Mario, go to Buenos Aires in search of Mario's estranged father, Ramon, an Argentinean leftist militant who vanished without a trace two decades before. During this trip, Lorenza tells Mario about a "dark episode" in which his father kidnapped him when he was a baby in an effort to bring her back after the couple broke up. Built around the often-humorous conversations between mother and son, the novel shows us two generations with different values. It's based on the author's own memories (Restrepo lived in Argentina in the 1970s and was a leftist activist), and some of the best moments depict the clandestine opposition to the regime, though Restrepo's closeness to the events she narrates may have hampered her writing. We are led to believe that the "dark episode" illustrates the thesis of the book-beware of hailing people as heroes-but it seems to conflict with the moral arc of the storyline; Ramon may be a cruel kidnapper as well as heroic warrior, but let's remember that the bloody dictatorship he protested actually "disappeared" people and kidnapped babies. Nonetheless, this novel is recommended for bookstores and popular Spanish-language fiction collections.-Carlos Rodriguez Martorell, East Elmhurst, NY Copyright 2009 Media Source Inc. ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More