Reviews
"The beautifully spare narrative is daringly imaginative in the details. . . . Echlin creates a sorrowfully compelling world . . . [in this] powerful, transcendent love story."-Publishers Weekly "[A] poignant love story . . . Lush and poetic . . .The Disappearedis a passionate and emotionally wrenching novel that forces us to remember and provides witness to what was lost."-Lauren Bufferd, BookPage.com "Sensual . . . Electrifying . . . [The Disappeared] is a miracle of economy whose short sentences and ellipses often draw on the powerful brevity of short-story technique. . . . The voice is singular and arresting. . . . [Written with] insidious urgency . . . [and] in an aroused but taut and plain prose that attaches the intensities of erotic love to the smell, sight, taste and touch of human suffering . . . Through [her] technical and stylistic virtuosity, allied with elliptical narrative brilliance, Echlin raises Anne's climactic ritual action to a level of tragic sublimity."-Stevie Davies,The Guardian(UK) "Finely chiseled prose . . . Undeniably beautiful . . . [With] moments of genuine tension and power."-Tash Aw,Telegraph(UK) "A dance of words . . . [full of] beauty, grace, sensuality and power. . . . In what is a seemingly impossible feat, the form is carved perfectly to the task-the book balances on the beauty. . . . Echlin is able, by imagination and art, to take the reader on a journey through eros and evil-a journey that travels into utter darkness but does not leave us in despair. . . . Echlin has wrought a work of singular beauty, a work which turns 'human cruelty' into the image of a particle of dust by a lover's cheek, into the rhythm of the sentences that carry knowledge of the world so all may witness."-Mary Jo Anderson,The Chronicle Herald(Canada) "Like her passionate narrator, Anne Greves, Echlin is not afraid to risk everything in this aching, heart-wrenching novel of young love aligned against human atrocity. In Anne's decades-long search for her missing lover, we see how those touched by genocide take the darkness inside themselves, holding annihilation at bay only through the defiant refusal to forget. A slender book of remembering, The Disappeared is unforgettable."-Sheri Holman, author ofThe Mammoth Cheese "The familiar tale of star-crossed lovers is revisited with gripping immediacy and compelling freshness in Kim Echlin'sThe Disappeared. Writing with sensuality, yearning, and in a voice readers will not soon forget, Ms. Echlin reminds us of the potency of our first loves, and of their enduring ability to shape and haunt us."-Stephanie Kallos, author ofBroken For YouandSing Them Home "Echlin's pristine prose . . . evokes the pull of eros as Anne searches for the man she loves in one of the world's most dangerous places. But Echlin is equally skilled at portraying the effects of trauma on the human spirit. . . .The Disappearedgoes to poetic lengths in order to come to grips with events too terrible to contemplate calmly . . . [and] I say thank you to writers who seek to open our eyes and minds."-Heather G. Cole,NOWmagazine (Heather's Pick) "Luminous . . . [A] precise, expressive story . . . Erotic and spiritual . . . Echlin's storytelling, shifting continents and years in a paragraph, gathers much of its pace and grace equally from her lyrical prose. . . . For all its brevity,The Disappearedstill attends to the skulls and bones and slaughterhouses of Cambodia's agony. . . . Emerging, "The beautifully spare narrative is daringly imaginative in the details. . . . Echlin creates a sorrowfully compelling world . . . [in this] powerful, transcendent love story."-Publishers Weekly "Sensual . . . Electrifying . . . [The Disappeared] is a miracle of economy whose short sentences and ellipses often draw on the powerful brevity of short-story technique. . . . The voice is singular and arresting. . . . [Written with] insidious urgency . . . [and] in an aroused but taut and plain prose that attaches the intensities of erotic love to the smell, sight, taste and touch of human suffering . . . Through [her] technical and stylistic virtuosity, allied with elliptical narrative brilliance, Echlin raises Anne's climactic ritual action to a level of tragic sublimity."-Stevie Davies,The Guardian(UK) "Finely chiseled prose . . . Undeniably beautiful . . . [With] moments of genuine tension and power."-Tash Aw,Telegraph(UK) "A dance of words . . . [full of] beauty, grace, sensuality and power. . . . In what is a seemingly impossible feat, the form is carved perfectly to the task-the book balances on the beauty. . . . Echlin is able, by imagination and art, to take the reader on a journey through eros and evil-a journey that travels into utter darkness but does not leave us in despair. . . . Echlin has wrought a work of singular beauty, a work which turns 'human cruelty' into the image of a particle of dust by a lover's cheek, into the rhythm of the sentences that carry knowledge of the world so all may witness."-Mary Jo Anderson,The Chronicle Herald(Canada) "Like her passionate narrator, Anne Greves, Echlin is not afraid to risk everything in this aching, heart-wrenching novel of young love aligned against human atrocity. In Anne's decades-long search for her missing lover, we see how those touched by genocide take the darkness inside themselves, holding annihilation at bay only through the defiant refusal to forget. A slender book of remembering, The Disappeared is unforgettable."-Sheri Holman, author ofThe Mammoth Cheese "The familiar tale of star-crossed lovers is revisited with gripping immediacy and compelling freshness in Kim Echlin'sThe Disappeared. Writing with sensuality, yearning, and in a voice readers will not soon forget, Ms. Echlin reminds us of the potency of our first loves, and of their enduring ability to shape and haunt us."-Stephanie Kallos, author ofBroken For YouandSing Them Home "Echlin's pristine prose . . . evokes the pull of eros as Anne searches for the man she loves in one of the world's most dangerous places. But Echlin is equally skilled at portraying the effects of trauma on the human spirit. . . .The Disappearedgoes to poetic lengths in order to come to grips with events too terrible to contemplate calmly . . . [and] I say thank you to writers who seek to open our eyes and minds."-Heather G. Cole,NOWmagazine (Heather's Pick) "Luminous . . . [A] precise, expressive story . . . Erotic and spiritual . . . Echlin's storytelling, shifting continents and years in a paragraph, gathers much of its pace and grace equally from her lyrical prose. . . . For all its brevity,The Disappearedstill attends to the skulls and bones and slaughterhouses of Cambodia's agony. . . . Emerging from [the] final pages is an act of love, and an image of horror, that elevatesThe Disappearedto a level of tragic intensity that it had been bound for from its opening sentences. To describe the act apart from its setting as the climax of a power, "A dance of words . . . [full of] beauty, grace, sensuality and power. . . . In what is a seemingly impossible feat, the form is carved perfectly to the task-the book balances on the beauty. . . . Echlin is able, by imagination and art, to take the reader on a journey through eros and evil-a journey that travels into utter darkness but does not leave us in despair. . . . Echlin has wrought a work of singular beauty, a work which turns 'human cruelty' into the image of a particle of dust by a lover's cheek, into the rhythm of the sentences that carry knowledge of the world so all may witness."-Mary Jo Anderson,The Chronicle Herald(Canada) "Like her passionate narrator, Anne Greves, Echlin is not afraid to risk everything in this aching, heart-wrenching novel of young love aligned against human atrocity. In Anne's decades-long search for her missing lover, we see how those touched by genocide take the darkness inside themselves, holding annihilation at bay only through the defiant refusal to forget. A slender book of remembering, The Disappeared is unforgettable."-Sheri Holman, author ofThe Mammoth Cheese "The familiar tale of star-crossed lovers is revisited with gripping immediacy and compelling freshness in Kim Echlin'sThe Disappeared. Writing with sensuality, yearning, and in a voice readers will not soon forget, Ms. Echlin reminds us of the potency of our first loves, and of their enduring ability to shape and haunt us."-Stephanie Kallos, author ofBroken For YouandSing Them Home "Echlin's pristine prose . . . evokes the pull of eros as Anne searches for the man she loves in one of the world's most dangerous places. But Echlin is equally skilled at portraying the effects of trauma on the human spirit. . . .The Disappearedgoes to poetic lengths in order to come to grips with events too terrible to contemplate calmly . . . [and] I say thank you to writers who seek to open our eyes and minds."-Heather G. Cole,NOWmagazine (Heather's Pick) "Luminous . . . [A] precise, expressive story . . . Erotic and spiritual . . . Echlin's storytelling, shifting continents and years in a paragraph, gathers much of its pace and grace equally from her lyrical prose. . . . For all its brevity,The Disappearedstill attends to the skulls and bones and slaughterhouses of Cambodia's agony. . . . Emerging from [the] final pages is an act of love, and an image of horror, that elevatesThe Disappearedto a level of tragic intensity that it had been bound for from its opening sentences. To describe the act apart from its setting as the climax of a powerfully vivid narrative would be ruin its extreme beauty. . . . The book, which can be read in a single sitting, builds toward a complex expression of annihilating loss and eternal love that is best experienced, in a sense, like the final act of a tragic play: as something inevitable and beyond the calculations of reason."-Charles Foran,The Globe and Mail "[An] engrossing literary novel . . . A beautiful elegy about two lovers who struggle to overcome the betrayal of their families and their fellow man."-Harriet Zaidman,Winnipeg Free Press "The impossibility of closure after great crimes, no matter how many tribunals and truth-and-reconciliation commissions we may launch, is the subject of Kim Echlin's absorbing new novel,The Disappeared. Echlin, one of Canada's finest prose stylists, approaches her subject with the delicacy and solemnity it deserves. . . . A beautiful work of art . . .The Disappearedtakes its place with such other chronicles of, "Sensual . . . Electrifying . . . [The Disappeared] is a miracle of economy whose short sentences and ellipses often draw on the powerful brevity of short-story technique. . . . The voice is singular and arresting. . . . [Written with] insidious urgency . . . [and] in an aroused but taut and plain prose that attaches the intensities of erotic love to the smell, sight, taste and touch of human suffering . . . Through [her] technical and stylistic virtuosity, allied with elliptical narrative brilliance, Echlin raises Anne's climactic ritual action to a level of tragic sublimity."-Stevie Davies,The Guardian(UK) "Finely chiseled prose . . . Undeniably beautiful . . . [With] moments of genuine tension and power."-Tash Aw,Telegraph(UK) "A dance of words . . . [full of] beauty, grace, sensuality and power. . . . In what is a seemingly impossible feat, the form is carved perfectly to the task-the book balances on the beauty. . . . Echlin is able, by imagination and art, to take the reader on a journey through eros and evil-a journey that travels into utter darkness but does not leave us in despair. . . . Echlin has wrought a work of singular beauty, a work which turns 'human cruelty' into the image of a particle of dust by a lover's cheek, into the rhythm of the sentences that carry knowledge of the world so all may witness."-Mary Jo Anderson,The Chronicle Herald(Canada) "Like her passionate narrator, Anne Greves, Echlin is not afraid to risk everything in this aching, heart-wrenching novel of young love aligned against human atrocity. In Anne's decades-long search for her missing lover, we see how those touched by genocide take the darkness inside themselves, holding annihilation at bay only through the defiant refusal to forget. A slender book of remembering, The Disappeared is unforgettable."-Sheri Holman, author ofThe Mammoth Cheese "The familiar tale of star-crossed lovers is revisited with gripping immediacy and compelling freshness in Kim Echlin'sThe Disappeared. Writing with sensuality, yearning, and in a voice readers will not soon forget, Ms. Echlin reminds us of the potency of our first loves, and of their enduring ability to shape and haunt us."-Stephanie Kallos, author ofBroken For YouandSing Them Home "Echlin's pristine prose . . . evokes the pull of eros as Anne searches for the man she loves in one of the world's most dangerous places. But Echlin is equally skilled at portraying the effects of trauma on the human spirit. . . .The Disappearedgoes to poetic lengths in order to come to grips with events too terrible to contemplate calmly . . . [and] I say thank you to writers who seek to open our eyes and minds."-Heather G. Cole,NOWmagazine (Heather's Pick) "Luminous . . . [A] precise, expressive story . . . Erotic and spiritual . . . Echlin's storytelling, shifting continents and years in a paragraph, gathers much of its pace and grace equally from her lyrical prose. . . . For all its brevity,The Disappearedstill attends to the skulls and bones and slaughterhouses of Cambodia's agony. . . . Emerging from [the] final pages is an act of love, and an image of horror, that elevatesThe Disappearedto a level of tragic intensity that it had been bound for from its opening sentences. To describe the act apart from its setting as the climax of a powerfully vivid narrative would be ruin its extreme beauty. . . . The book, which can be read in a single sitting, builds toward a complex expression of annihilating loss and eternal love that is best experienced, in a sense, like the fin, "Spellbinding . . . There is something of Marguerite Duras in these pages, something of the lust between the young Western girl and the Asian man that drove novels likeThe LoverandThe North China Lover. But while Duras focuses mostly on desire, Echlin focuses on absolute love-physical desire coupled with the need to know everything about the beloved, to follow him even to the grave and beyond. . . . Echlin captures the beauty and horror of Cambodia in equal measure . . . [and] love and death pulsate through [her] pages, interlaced. . . . Exquisite . . . [Echlin] creates alchemy. She permits what has been unsaid to be said, and what has been nameless to be named at last."-Dalia Sofer,The New York Times Book Review(Editors' Choice) "The beautifully spare narrative is daringly imaginative in the details. . . . Echlin creates a sorrowfully compelling world . . . [in this] powerful, transcendent love story."-Publishers Weekly "[A] poignant love story . . . Lush and poetic . . .The Disappearedis a passionate and emotionally wrenching novel that forces us to remember and provides witness to what was lost."-BookPage.com "Sensual . . . Electrifying . . . [The Disappeared] is a miracle of economy whose short sentences and ellipses often draw on the powerful brevity of short-story technique. . . . The voice is singular and arresting. . . . [Written with] insidious urgency . . . [and] in an aroused but taut and plain prose that attaches the intensities of erotic love to the smell, sight, taste and touch of human suffering . . . Through [her] technical and stylistic virtuosity, allied with elliptical narrative brilliance, Echlin raises Anne's climactic ritual action to a level of tragic sublimity."-Stevie Davies,The Guardian(UK) "Finely chiseled prose . . . Undeniably beautiful . . . [With] moments of genuine tension and power."-Tash Aw,Telegraph(UK) "A dance of words . . . [full of] beauty, grace, sensuality and power. . . . In what is a seemingly impossible feat, the form is carved perfectly to the task-the book balances on the beauty. . . . Echlin is able, by imagination and art, to take the reader on a journey through eros and evil-a journey that travels into utter darkness but does not leave us in despair. . . . Echlin has wrought a work of singular beauty, a work which turns 'human cruelty' into the image of a particle of dust by a lover's cheek, into the rhythm of the sentences that carry knowledge of the world so all may witness."-The Chronicle Herald(Canada) "Like her passionate narrator, Anne Greves, Echlin is not afraid to risk everything in this aching, heart-wrenching novel of young love aligned against human atrocity. In Anne's decades-long search for her missing lover, we see how those touched by genocide take the darkness inside themselves, holding annihilation at bay only through the defiant refusal to forget. A slender book of remembering, The Disappeared is unforgettable."-Sheri Holman, author ofThe Mammoth Cheese "The familiar tale of star-crossed lovers is revisited with gripping immediacy and compelling freshness in Kim Echlin'sThe Disappeared. Writing with sensuality, yearning, and in a voice readers will not soon forget, Ms. Echlin reminds us of the potency of our first loves, and of their enduring ability to shape and haunt us."-Stephanie Kallos, author ofBroken For YouandSing Them Home "Echlin's pristine prose . . . evokes the pull of eros as Anne searches for the man she loves in one of the world's most dang
