On a Night of a Thousand Stars by Andrea Yaryura Clark

I learned about Argentina's Dirty War, coup, politics, and turmoil during undergrad, but reading Clark's novel reopened the empathy in a way I hadn't experienced then: a mother's love and doing what we think is best for our child, sometimes even to their detriment. #ReadForever, #ReadForeverPub, #ReadForever2022 

In this moving, emotional narrative of love and resilience, a young couple confronts the start of Argentina's Dirty War in the 1970s, and a daughter searches for truth twenty years later.

New York, 1998. Santiago Larrea, a wealthy Argentine diplomat, is holding court alongside his wife, Lila, and their daughter, Paloma, a college student and budding jewelry designer, at their annual summer polo match and soiree. All seems perfect in the Larreas’ world—until an unexpected party guest from Santiago's university days shakes his usually unflappable demeanor. The woman's cryptic comments spark Paloma’s curiosity about her father’s past, of which she knows little.

When the family travels to Buenos Aires for Santiago's UN ambassadorial appointment, Paloma is determined to learn more about his life in the years leading up to the military dictatorship of 1976. With the help of a local university student, Franco Bonetti, an activist member of H.I.J.O.S.—a group whose members are the children of the desaparecidos, or the “disappeared,” men and women who were forcibly disappeared by the state during Argentina’s “Dirty War”—Paloma unleashes a chain of events that not only leads her to question her family and her identity, but also puts her life in danger.

In compelling fashion, On a Night of a Thousand Stars speaks to relationships, morality, and identity during a brutal period in Argentinian history, and the understanding—and redemption—people crave in the face of tragedy.

Desaparecidos
1999, Noemí Escandell
Impresiones multiejemplares sobre papel
40 x 35 cm


Noemí Escandell’s piece, “Desaparecidos” encompasses the sentiments of these mothers of the Plaza de Mayo through her interpretation of Michelangelo’s “Pieta” from 1499.


“Durante la dictadura militar se sentía algo muy profundo, y me dije Dios desapareció. Recordando esta sensación cuando me pidieron la obra lo hice desaparecer a Dios. En La Piedad de Miguel Ángel Dios estaba en las faldas de la madre, y yo se lo saqué (Ballan 1).”



In Escandell’s interpretation, Mary’s head is wrapped in the white kerchief, lap empty, whilst she stares at the space where the body of her dead child should be, her arms widened, waiting to accept a death that will never be confirmed, a hurt that will never be comforted or forgotten. The questions remain: Where are they? What has happened to them?

Buy On a Night of a Thousand Stars today.