The Disappeared

By Kim Echlin

This story of passionate love between a Canadian and her Cambodian lover evokes their tumultuous relationship in a world of colliding values. Set against the backdrop of horrific loss, these two self-exiled lovers struggle to recreate themselves in a world that rejects their hopes. Spare, unrelenting, and moving, The Disappeared is an unforgettable consideration of love, language, justice, and memory set against the backdrop of the killing fields of Pol Pot.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Mar 3, 2009
• ISBN: 9780143172819

Kim Echlin

Kim Echlin lives in Toronto. She is the author of Elephant Winter, Dagmar's Daughter, Inanna: From the Myths of Ancient Sumer, and The Disappeared, which was published in seventeen languages, nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award for Fiction.

Reviews for The Disappeared

[scrat_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As an intrepid traveller and a proud supporter of Canadian Lit, Kim Echlin's The Disappeared definitely appealed to me and it did not disappoint. I won't retell the plot as other reviewers have already done so.One of the things that I liked about the novel, of course, were the settings in peaceful Canada as well as war ravaged Cambodia. I also liked the fact that the novel covered a significant part of the protagonist's life because we can see her as a young naive woman as well as a mature experienced woman who somehow has managed to preserve her love for her lover, Serey and her love for being in love. Usually I am not very tolerant of what I perceive as a gratuitous and self-indulgent poetic style employed by some writers, however, perhaps because The Disappeared is not a seemingly unending piece of fiction, the poetic nature of Echlin's writing does not detract but actually effectively enriches the portrayal of the protagonist's sensitive and ingenuous nature.

[crosbyc_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A perfect bittersweet book about an horrific history. Echlin's writing is like poetry. This is a hauntingly poignant love story.

[ldvoorberg · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What I learned from this book is that our North American life is so easy, peaceful, and full of rights. But there are countries, like Cambodia, which are so devasted by war that there is no such thing as wrong or right (like Sokha's choice to join the soldiers) and that survival is fickle.This book is amazing. Short enough to read in an afternoon, but so powerful it will stay with you. Unique POV, in that it is is first person, past tense, with another character as the audience (eg I did this, then you said that). Very effective.Read it.

[awaagner-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is full to the bursting with beautiful, heartbreaking images. Echlin's unique use of language is unparalleled, and her ability to state simple truths that you felt were nearly impossible to put into words is uncanny.

That being said, I personally did not jibe with the way the work was written. Though the prose is littered with these impossibly moving images, the stream-of-consciousness style of writing is not one that I tend to favor. The writing is very loose and utilizes a strange combination of directness and subtlety to tell the story. I wanted to be more involved than I was, but I felt distracted by excessive tangents.

Beautiful story, beautiful words. I'd recommend it to people who are a little less finnicky than me about how they like their stories told.

[lkernagh · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Disapeared by Kim Echlin is a book that drew me in with its strong, descriptive language and the first person narrator perspective the story was written in. Disappeared is presented as a fictitious memoir set mainly in the 1970's and 80's during the Cambodian genocide, the Vitnamese occupation of Cambodia and into the start of the United Nations Transitional Authority. The story starts in the jazz bars of Montreal Canada where the narrator, Anne Greves, meets and falls in love with Serey, a Cambodian student that is in exile in Canada due to the circumstances of the Pol Pot regime and the closing of the borders of Cambodia. When the borders re-open, Serey returns to try and locate his family, leaving Anne in Canada. A decade passes with no communications between Serey and Anne, and Anne makes the decision to fly to Cambodia to find him. The majority of the story is about Anne's time in Cambodia.Echlin's writing style presents the reader to a vivid display of Cambodia, the sights and sounds of a nation trying to rebuild, and the stories of horror that continue to haunt the people Anne encounters. It is a poignant emotional and thought-provoking examination of human nature's strength of will to survive in adversity and the horrors that the human race can inflict upon its own kind.

[kimreadthis · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Anne Greves lives in Montreal. When she is a teenager (16ish), she meets Serey, a musician in his early twenties. Serey is Cambodian, and was sent to Canada by his family to escape Pol Pot and the unrest in Cambodia. Against her father's wishes, Anne develops a relationship with him. When the Cambodian borders reopen, Serey returns home to try to find his family. Anne does not hear from him. Years later after college (where she studied the Cambodian language), she travels to Cambodia and locates Serey. They build a new relationship and she becomes pregnant, eventually losing the baby. Serey is doing journalistic photography for the opposition to the government and is eventually killed at a rally. The government tries to cover up his murder and expels Anne from the country for investigating it.Short chapters, no quotation marks. Written from Anne's pespective. Written as if addressing Serey. Refers to Serey throughout as "you."Sex - RViolence - R

[mrn945_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was undoubtedly one of the prettiest books about a horrific topic that I have ever read. The way she writes is gorgeous - it has the lyrical quality of poetry with perfect sentence construction. Actually, it had a musical quality to it as well - almost like she was lilting a little song in your ear.If it was a song though, it was the most heartbreaking song you have ever heard in your life. The description she gives of her intoxicating love with Serey is breathtaking and terrifying - particularly for someone with commitment phobia like me.I had to check several times to make sure that the author had not in fact written a memoir instead of a fictional novel. The way in which she described the genocide in Cambodia and the aftermath was shockingly accurate - having studied the genocide a bit I fell sort of qualified to make such a statement.The entire book was sensual and beautiful, which seems weird when discussing a book that made me cry several times. It is the simple truth though - this book was incredible.

[loosha_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

from p. 172"Why do some people live a comfortable life and others live one that is horror-filled? What part of ourselves do we shave off so we can keep on eating while others starve? If women, children, and old people were being murdered a hundred miles from here, would we not run to help? Why do we stop this decision of the heart when the distance is three thousand miles instead of a hundred?"A love story spanning several decades, beginning in Montreal where Anne falls in love at a young age with a Cambodian musician/student who cannot return to his country during Pol Pot's rule. When the borders are finally opened, he is compelled to return to try to find his family. Anne hears nothing from him for years, continues to love him, and learns the Khmer language, until one day she thinks she sees him as part of the crowd on a newreel. She decides she must go to Phnon Penh to find him. Here begins the story of the most tragic and traumatic kind of life this world has ever seen. The language is sparse ,poetic, but not indulgent. An unusual method of narration is used; Anne is telling the story of their love to Serey. Here is a random sample that gives a feeling for the tone:from p. 93Why is she afraid to sit with us, I asked.You joked, Maybe it's your accent.I did not understand then that everywhere people watched each other. And sometimes they told and sometimes they did not in this place that was not free.This is one of those stories that if you don't read it, you can forget that some things ever happened. It's more comfortable not to know, not to revisit the terrors that humans can inflict on one another. A love story, also a nudge to the conscience.

[vivienner_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An unforgettable story of love, loyalty and dedication. Sixteen-year-old Anne Greves fell in love with a Cambodian student in Quebec. When the borders closed during the Pol Pot genocide, Serey was unable to contact his family. When he was eventually able to return to search for them Anne waited for years without news before going to Cambodia herself. Through books, news, and movies we heard a lot about the Cambodian genocide in the 1970s when two million people died, and of the Vietnam occupation lasting until 1989. Echlin takes this catastrophic event and condenses it into a story about one couple without diminishing the impact on the millions who suffered and continue to suffer. This is a remarkable, vivid and haunting story.

[smits_52 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Although this book is well written, It did not draw me in. I found it hard to relate to Anne and Serey or their love story which seemed way too intense. I am glad to have more knowledge now about Phnom Penh and the Cambodian genocide that happened in the 1970s. The book was graphic in its violence which I also did not enjoy.

[mynovelthoughts · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am not sure how to best describe my reactions to The Disappeared. It is one of those novels that's subject matter is so horrific that pointing to any perceived shortfalls would feel petty. Echlin's descriptions of the genocide and aftermath in Cambodia are heart-wrenching. I found myself feeling thankful for being born in Canada several times as I read this novel. I knew about the atrocities that took place in Cambodia on a superficial level, but The Disappeared made me familiar on a much deeper level. This novel will shake you up; I highly recommend it for the descriptions of the genocides alone.

[cathyincanada · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Set in the aftermath of the Cambodian massacres I was surprised that there were moments of joy in this book. Definitely worth a read.

[rdra1962 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Spare, beautiful, moving, sensual, haunting, disturbing. An incredibly well-written novel, a love story, a recounting of the atrocities in Cambodia, and every parents nightmare!

[veevoxvoom · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Summary: Anne Greves is a sixteen-year-old girl in Montreal when she meets Serey, a student from Cambodia who cannot return to his country because of the genocide. They fall in love, but when Cambodia’s borders reopen Serey goes back to find his family. When Anne doesn’t hear from him, she decides to go after him, and so begins her saga of violence and loss in wartorn Cambodia.Review: This is the second book in my goal to read the entire Giller 2009 shortlist. I read this after The Winter Vault and I can’t help but notice the similarities. Both are about a couple who experience separation and loss, both have stillborn babies, both are told in a fragmentary and poetic style, and both involve ventures into foreign countries. However, whereas I merely liked The Winter Vault, I loved The Disappeared. I think for me the political turmoil and brutality of the Cambodian setting made the difference. In The Winter Vault it was mostly just two privileged middle-class people having existential angst. But here is the kind of loss that moves me more deeply, the loss of friends and family and country.The Disappeared is short but absolutely heartbreaking. Anne’s love for Serey shines through the pages so desperately, and you want them to be together, but you know that Serey’s involvement in the resistance makes it impossible. There’s a sense of despair, a sense of ‘you can’t change anything about this’ whereas in The Winter Vault I always felt that the protagonists could get over their angst; they just choose not to.The pain, the fear, the disappearance of thousands of Cambodians. The question of how to continue loving someone even after they are gone. Echlin’s prose is simple but she knows how to choose the words that will punch you the hardest. I know I will want to read more about modern Cambodia after this (not that I wasn’t interested before, because I was, but my interest has been re-fanned, so to speak). It also makes me excited to read the other books on the Giller shortlist, especially the book that won, because if it beat this one, it must be pretty goddamn stellar.Conclusion: Heartbreak in 228 pages.P.S: Apologies for the excessive comparison with The Winter Vault. Reading them back to back sort of messed with my head a bit, haha.