A Flower Traveled in My Blood by Haley Cohen Gilliland

Brendan’s Alternate Tagline for A Flower Traveled in My Blood:

Nobody wins.

Quick synopsis:

The story of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo and their search for their kidnapped grandchildren in Argentina.

Fact for Non-History People:

The most lucrative kidnapping in world history happened in Argentina and netted the kidnappers $60 million.

Fact for History Nerds:

When Argentina hosted the soccer World Cup in 1978, they poured $70 million into new stadiums and security.

My Take on A Flower Traveled in My Blood:

I like my books to be messy. Not the writing obviously, but in the underlying issues brought up naturally by the story. There is something about a narrative that makes you wonder, “Well, what would I have done? What is the right answer in this situation?” An exceptional example of this is A Flower Traveled in My Blood by Haley Cohen Gilliland. I still don’t know what I would have done, and I know I don’t have a right answer.

Gilliland looks at Argentina from the 1970s to today. Specifically, violent and murderous government officials were kidnapping suspected anti-junta actors and making them disappear. In the middle of this violence, hundreds of babies were taken forcefully from their parents and handed to friends of the government. Their birth parents would never be seen again. The main characters of the story become the grandmothers who take it upon themselves to find their grandchildren and take on the government.

There are many superlative things I can say about Gilliland’s writing, but the most important part is how she seamlessly integrates a multitude of ideas, people, and events. In the wrong hands, this book would be 600 pages that would be impossible to follow. The author has an eye for details which allow her to quickly imprint her characters in the reader’s mind without slowing down. I can not overstate how well this book flows considering the 50+ year timeline and the amount of people to keep track of.

If this all sounds like a lot, well it is, but the heartbreak doesn’t end when the grandmothers start to find their grandchildren. Instead, a moral question becomes a major problem. What if these children don’t want to have their world shattered by finding out their parents are actually not their parents? If these adoptive parents honestly adopted these children thinking it was all legal, then can they have these kids ripped from the only home they have ever truly known? However, if the truth isn’t uncovered, do the kidnappers evade justice?

Atop all of this drama is also the question of how a country moves on from extreme generational trauma. Can society move on if trials seem never-ending? If a moratorium is placed on past crimes, can there ever be justice? Gilliland lays this all out for the reader without moralizing. It’s the best way to go about it in my mind and it makes this one of the best books I have read this year.

(This book was provided as an advance reader copy by NetGalley and Avid Reader Press.)

Verdict:

An amazing story told amazingly well. Buy it here!