I have often noted in my reviews that I love great historical fiction. The stories can cover a brief moment or grand sweep of time. It is simply that beautiful blending of truth and fiction that always seems to strike a chord. The Disappeared by Kim Echlin is one such story. The book centers on a single love story, the intense romance between Anne and Serey and is set against one of the most tormented moments in human history: Cambodia under the reign of Pol Pot.

Anne is a high school senior when she falls in love with the slightly older and exotically charismatic Serey who is in exile from his beautiful Cambodia. Their romance begins in a small café in Old Montreal, moves through intense exploration and love making. But Serey cannot stay with his new life. Compelled to discover the fate of his parents and friends, Serey knows he must pull himself from the passion he feels and return to his home. He promises he will be in touch, and, at the right moment, they will reunite forever. But once gone, Anne never hears from Serey despite endless letters and efforts to reach him.

Years later, unable to bring closure to her feelings, Anne goes to Cambodia to search out the man she knows is the love of her life. Woven beautifully into her story of love rediscovered -- in language which is both poetic and heartbreaking -- are the unspeakable horrors wrought by the now retreated Khmer Rouge.

As Anne works to understand the man who becomes the father of her child, and all that is Cambodia, we come to learn how easy it is to allow distance and the burdens of truth to insulate us from bearing witness to war and its aftermath. But as Anne herself says, "If we live long enough, we have to tell, or turn to stone inside."

From its first page, The Disappeared takes us into the land of kings and temples, fought over for generations. It reveals the forces that act on love everywhere: family, politics, forgetting. This is a story that will embrace you from the first page and stay with you like a good wine.

Quotes from Reviews:

Literary Review of Canada - "Kim Echlin creates sentences beyond our imagining"

Books in Canada- "Stylistically assured, entirely captivating..."

Slow to start-I almost gave up after 25 pages but it gets really good and remains that way for the rest of the book :)

I enjoyed reading The Disappeared and was intrigued and thought the author's use of language and description brought me right into the novel.

Disappeared - Disappointment
By Silvana Meliambro

July 10, 2009 - 8:06 am
I usually enjoy most of Heather's picks but this particular one was such a disappointment. It was described to be an incredible love story - which in my opinion was not. The book concentrates mostly on the war in cambodia and how it affected the people of its country. If you are interested in historical based loved stories then perhaps you will like it. I just found that all the historical details obscured the love story between the two characters. I only actually was interested in the first couple of chapters then dragged myself through to the end which maybe became interesting again in the last few chapters.
Definitely not a great summer read - very boring!!