Genre Fiction
![Daniel Loedel - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B09CF2GVMK.jpg)
Hades, Argentina: A Novel
CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE LONGLIST
"A debut novel as impressive as they come. Tough, wily, dreamlike." -Seattle Times
A decade after fleeing for his life, a man is pulled back to Argentina by an undying love.
In 1976, Tomás Orilla is a medical student in Buenos Aires, where he has moved in hopes of reuniting with Isabel, a childhood crush. But the reckless passion that has long drawn him is leading Isabel ever deeper into the ranks of the insurgency fighting an increasingly oppressive regime. Tomás has always been willing to follow her anywhere, to do anything to prove himself. Yet what exactly is he proving, and at what cost to them both?
It will be years before a summons back arrives for Tomás, now living as Thomas Shore in New York. It isn't a homecoming that awaits him, however, so much as an odyssey into the past, an encounter with the ghosts that lurk there, and a reckoning with the fatal gap between who he has become and who he once aspired to be. Raising profound questions about the sometimes impossible choices we make in the name of love, Hades, Argentina is a gripping, ingeniously narrated literary debut.
"A debut novel as impressive as they come. Tough, wily, dreamlike." -Seattle Times
A decade after fleeing for his life, a man is pulled back to Argentina by an undying love.
In 1976, Tomás Orilla is a medical student in Buenos Aires, where he has moved in hopes of reuniting with Isabel, a childhood crush. But the reckless passion that has long drawn him is leading Isabel ever deeper into the ranks of the insurgency fighting an increasingly oppressive regime. Tomás has always been willing to follow her anywhere, to do anything to prove himself. Yet what exactly is he proving, and at what cost to them both?
It will be years before a summons back arrives for Tomás, now living as Thomas Shore in New York. It isn't a homecoming that awaits him, however, so much as an odyssey into the past, an encounter with the ghosts that lurk there, and a reckoning with the fatal gap between who he has become and who he once aspired to be. Raising profound questions about the sometimes impossible choices we make in the name of love, Hades, Argentina is a gripping, ingeniously narrated literary debut.
Editorial Reviews
Praise for Hades, Argentina:
"It is not always ‘us versus them.' It is the ‘me versus me' that plays out in individuals as they wrestle with what it means to do the right thing. . . . Loedel draws the line of complicity ever closer. . . . asking readers to consider at what point the witness becomes victimizer. . . . [He] continually works to erase the notion that only the evil commit evil acts, which adds to the horror. How do ‘ordinary men' become instruments of a repressive state?" -Los Angeles Times
"This haunting historical novel . . . weaves betrayal and sacrifice so intricately that one cannot be disentangled from the other" -The New Yorker
"Elegant, searching. . . Amid echoes of the Orpheus myth and swirls of magic. . . . a descent into an underworld of memory and brutality." -O, The Oprah Magazine
"A debut novel as impressive as they come. Tough, wily, dreamlike. . . The tangles of action, intention, and self-deception [Loedel] evokes are spellbinding in ways that will hit home in any society where democracy, the rule of law, and the very concept of the truth are in peril." -The Seattle Times
"Powerful . . . The plain delicacy of Mr Loedel's prose suits not only the horror of his subject, but also his novel's risky premise. . . . hell is at once metaphor and setting, literary conceit and emotional reality. Tomás's sojourn there is a fittingly moving tribute to the author's sister and her many fellow victims." -The Economist
"Surely one of the most astonishing debut novels of the year. . . . In scene after scene, Loedel is as masterful in his prose on love and heartache as he is unflinching in his descriptions of the torture applied to the perceived enemies of the regiment. . . . Like Virgil leading Dante through the furnace, Loedel's narrative hand allows us to follow along without giving up our sense of hope." -Interview
"Haunting. . . the heavy burden of memory and an urge to sever oneself from the past animates this powerful, evocative, and intelligent novel." -Electric Literature
"[Loedel] reimagines the platitude ‘the personal is political' by injecting enchantment and morality into one man's entanglements with forces aligned against him. Hades, Argentina announces a major career, and we can expect great work from this gifted writer in the future." -Harvard Review
"Weaving history and humanity, Loedel crafts a powerful and compelling narrative of a seemingly dystopian world that, unfortunately, was all too real." -The Millions
"A gorgeously told tale of really...
"It is not always ‘us versus them.' It is the ‘me versus me' that plays out in individuals as they wrestle with what it means to do the right thing. . . . Loedel draws the line of complicity ever closer. . . . asking readers to consider at what point the witness becomes victimizer. . . . [He] continually works to erase the notion that only the evil commit evil acts, which adds to the horror. How do ‘ordinary men' become instruments of a repressive state?" -Los Angeles Times
"This haunting historical novel . . . weaves betrayal and sacrifice so intricately that one cannot be disentangled from the other" -The New Yorker
"Elegant, searching. . . Amid echoes of the Orpheus myth and swirls of magic. . . . a descent into an underworld of memory and brutality." -O, The Oprah Magazine
"A debut novel as impressive as they come. Tough, wily, dreamlike. . . The tangles of action, intention, and self-deception [Loedel] evokes are spellbinding in ways that will hit home in any society where democracy, the rule of law, and the very concept of the truth are in peril." -The Seattle Times
"Powerful . . . The plain delicacy of Mr Loedel's prose suits not only the horror of his subject, but also his novel's risky premise. . . . hell is at once metaphor and setting, literary conceit and emotional reality. Tomás's sojourn there is a fittingly moving tribute to the author's sister and her many fellow victims." -The Economist
"Surely one of the most astonishing debut novels of the year. . . . In scene after scene, Loedel is as masterful in his prose on love and heartache as he is unflinching in his descriptions of the torture applied to the perceived enemies of the regiment. . . . Like Virgil leading Dante through the furnace, Loedel's narrative hand allows us to follow along without giving up our sense of hope." -Interview
"Haunting. . . the heavy burden of memory and an urge to sever oneself from the past animates this powerful, evocative, and intelligent novel." -Electric Literature
"[Loedel] reimagines the platitude ‘the personal is political' by injecting enchantment and morality into one man's entanglements with forces aligned against him. Hades, Argentina announces a major career, and we can expect great work from this gifted writer in the future." -Harvard Review
"Weaving history and humanity, Loedel crafts a powerful and compelling narrative of a seemingly dystopian world that, unfortunately, was all too real." -The Millions
"A gorgeously told tale of really...
Readers Top Reviews
Alona MartinezCarol
Poignant and beautifully written, it’s been days since I finished this book and I still can’t stop thinking about it.
montanawhiteyVict
ewxcellent on the time of the disappearances--love causes invovement and revulsion. Thje Colonel is a good figure of mystery. Is Tomas believable? Isabel more so.....detailsl of the torture AND DEATHS worked in very nicely
batshevarose
A difficult subject covered in an intriguing way. Argentinian repression and torture, disappearing people, told through the love struck eyes of Tomas.
Deborah
This is a story of love and hope written, told in he voice of an unwilling participant in the disappearance of thousands. The junta of '76-'83 rounded up suspected political dissidents who were never tried, but were murdered. The author writes of love with a sensitivity seldom realized by male writers. The women are complex and lovingly brought to life by Loedel. He weaves in and out of reality, seeing and hearing ghosts. This technique is reminiscent of two great writers. Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Juno Diaz, but Loebel brings his own, fresh perspective to a dark place in Argentine history. I look forward to his second book.
Short Excerpt Teaser
One
*
I'd spent eight years officially disappeared. At least as far as I knew; I hadn't been back to Argentina since'76, and even after the ostensible resumption of democracy in '83, no one from the government ever managed to confirm my existence. Only in the ninth year, when I married an American and had to get certain papers in order for my green card, did Tomás Orilla return to documented being.
But the interval in between wasn't merely a bureaucratic absence. I'd shut myself off completely until I met my wife, and even then-by our first anniversary, I was already sleeping on the couch. The affair was hers, but the fault, I acknowledged tacitly, was mine. I'd never been truly present. Kind and available, yes. Committed too. Even making plans for the long term-a joint savings account, my citizenship application, and, most recently, conversations about children. But it was always an effort, a mask I put on. If I blamed Claire for anything, it was that she saw it for what it was and let me wear it anyway.
That's one reason I went back, when I got the call Pichuca was dying: it'd mean a break from our problems. But like all things, it was a combination, a messy one. The timing contributed: presumably it would be safer for me in Argentina now, three years into non-military rule. So did the fact that my work was portable. The notorious lure of the past-especially amidst all that secretly uncomfortable talk of the future-was certainly part of it as well.
There was also the call itself. Pichuca made it unassisted, rambling half-intelligibly through a patchy connection that left her sounding older than her sixty years, and a good deal crazier. Not at first, when she told me it was pancreatic cancer and she had little time left, nor when she gave me the logistical details I needed in order to visit. But at the end, when she told me over an increasingly scratchy line that Isabel could come back as well, despite the fact that Isabel had been disappeared as long as I had.
I chalked up the delusion to Pichuca's illness. But the idea still held symbolic appeal, the kind to do with closure and redemption, putting stubborn ghosts back in their graves.
Only when I hung up did I wonder: My departure from the country had been almost traceless. I left behind no forwarding address or number. I didn't notify anyone, regrettably not even my mother, who died several months later. How Pichuca had found me-how anybody could have-was a mystery.
A small one maybe. Getting those citizenship forms in order had led me to fill out others, and more paths to me had opened up than I liked. There were census questionnaires, banks and lawyers contacting me about my mother's unclaimed assets, and requests for an interview from CONADEP, the country's newly founded commission investigating the military government and disappeared persons. Their inquiries had been the most difficult to navigate, as Claire had seen one of the envelopes. She knew more than the broad contours with which most Americans were familiar-Cold War, U.S.-backed authoritarian regime kidnapping and killing tens of thousands at will in the name of fending off communism. She was aware of my time in detention, had heard me recount certain nightmares and encouraged me to confront them. Yet my honesty with her remained selective, and the full, fleshed-out story still wasn't one I was eager to examine, much less hand over.
The point is, I could reason out ways of tracking me down if I tried. But mostly they involved big investigative bodies and the kind of resources someone like Pichuca would never have had at her disposal. So the question of how she managed it proved to be its own draw. And though I could have called back-she'd told me what hospital in Buenos Aires she was in, the room number as well-I didn't. Instead I simply told Claire my plans and booked my flight and hotel.
But I must have had at least a hunch that the borders I'd cross on this journey weren't the standard ones. Since, on a semi-conscious whim I told myself was purely nostalgic, I wound up packing-stuffed into the bottom of my suitcase as if I were hiding it-the fake passport the Colonel had given me when I fled from Argentina, now almost exactly a decade before.
Two
*
I'd never flown into Buenos Aires, and I'd only flown out of it the once, making the experience of returning strange from the start. Everything at the airport gave off a sense of foreignness, uncharted waters. Though I showed my real, recently renewed Argentine passport to the immigration officer, for instance, he stared at it a while, seemingly uncertain what to do about the fact that his would be the first Argentine stamp on it. There was also the clerk at the currency exchange who loo...
*
I'd spent eight years officially disappeared. At least as far as I knew; I hadn't been back to Argentina since'76, and even after the ostensible resumption of democracy in '83, no one from the government ever managed to confirm my existence. Only in the ninth year, when I married an American and had to get certain papers in order for my green card, did Tomás Orilla return to documented being.
But the interval in between wasn't merely a bureaucratic absence. I'd shut myself off completely until I met my wife, and even then-by our first anniversary, I was already sleeping on the couch. The affair was hers, but the fault, I acknowledged tacitly, was mine. I'd never been truly present. Kind and available, yes. Committed too. Even making plans for the long term-a joint savings account, my citizenship application, and, most recently, conversations about children. But it was always an effort, a mask I put on. If I blamed Claire for anything, it was that she saw it for what it was and let me wear it anyway.
That's one reason I went back, when I got the call Pichuca was dying: it'd mean a break from our problems. But like all things, it was a combination, a messy one. The timing contributed: presumably it would be safer for me in Argentina now, three years into non-military rule. So did the fact that my work was portable. The notorious lure of the past-especially amidst all that secretly uncomfortable talk of the future-was certainly part of it as well.
There was also the call itself. Pichuca made it unassisted, rambling half-intelligibly through a patchy connection that left her sounding older than her sixty years, and a good deal crazier. Not at first, when she told me it was pancreatic cancer and she had little time left, nor when she gave me the logistical details I needed in order to visit. But at the end, when she told me over an increasingly scratchy line that Isabel could come back as well, despite the fact that Isabel had been disappeared as long as I had.
I chalked up the delusion to Pichuca's illness. But the idea still held symbolic appeal, the kind to do with closure and redemption, putting stubborn ghosts back in their graves.
Only when I hung up did I wonder: My departure from the country had been almost traceless. I left behind no forwarding address or number. I didn't notify anyone, regrettably not even my mother, who died several months later. How Pichuca had found me-how anybody could have-was a mystery.
A small one maybe. Getting those citizenship forms in order had led me to fill out others, and more paths to me had opened up than I liked. There were census questionnaires, banks and lawyers contacting me about my mother's unclaimed assets, and requests for an interview from CONADEP, the country's newly founded commission investigating the military government and disappeared persons. Their inquiries had been the most difficult to navigate, as Claire had seen one of the envelopes. She knew more than the broad contours with which most Americans were familiar-Cold War, U.S.-backed authoritarian regime kidnapping and killing tens of thousands at will in the name of fending off communism. She was aware of my time in detention, had heard me recount certain nightmares and encouraged me to confront them. Yet my honesty with her remained selective, and the full, fleshed-out story still wasn't one I was eager to examine, much less hand over.
The point is, I could reason out ways of tracking me down if I tried. But mostly they involved big investigative bodies and the kind of resources someone like Pichuca would never have had at her disposal. So the question of how she managed it proved to be its own draw. And though I could have called back-she'd told me what hospital in Buenos Aires she was in, the room number as well-I didn't. Instead I simply told Claire my plans and booked my flight and hotel.
But I must have had at least a hunch that the borders I'd cross on this journey weren't the standard ones. Since, on a semi-conscious whim I told myself was purely nostalgic, I wound up packing-stuffed into the bottom of my suitcase as if I were hiding it-the fake passport the Colonel had given me when I fled from Argentina, now almost exactly a decade before.
Two
*
I'd never flown into Buenos Aires, and I'd only flown out of it the once, making the experience of returning strange from the start. Everything at the airport gave off a sense of foreignness, uncharted waters. Though I showed my real, recently renewed Argentine passport to the immigration officer, for instance, he stared at it a while, seemingly uncertain what to do about the fact that his would be the first Argentine stamp on it. There was also the clerk at the currency exchange who loo...
