And the reader - and tourist-in-preparation – learns about the horrors of the Killing Times. But she also finds Cambodia, a country suffering post-traumatic stress. Then she sets off in search of her lover. But when, after four Khmer Rouge terrible years, the Vietnamese army moves in and opens the border again, Serey moves back home, alone, in search of his family.Īnne hears nothing from him, year after year. Serey was able to get out of Cambodia before the killing times. Over the objections of her father, they get together and live on the Bleury Street fringes of the music world. It’s set originally in Montreal, where a private school girl (from Miss Edgar and Miss Cramp’s School) named Ann Greves meets a young Cambodian musician/student named Serey. So I have been very pleased to read Kim Echlin’s 2009 novel The Disappeared.

(London I’m sure, is different if you have never read Dickens.) But past experience shows that a layer of familiarity with a place is much better acquired from a good novel than from a tourist guidebook. I’m doing all of the usual preparation things (or, more correctly, I’m saying, “Sounds good” when Jane suggests two nights at this hotel, then three nights at that one). In May I’m going to be visiting Cambodia for the first time, to see my daughter Katie, who is doing good work there.

The Disappeared by Kim Echlin