Simon Cardoso has been dead for thirty years when his wife, Emilia Dupuy, finds him in a New Jersey diner. Testimonies confirmed that Simon had been one of the thousands of victims of Argentina`s military regime, executed for being a `subversive`; yet this man is identical to the man she lost three decades ago. While skirting around the mystery, Eloy Martinez masterfully peels away layer upon layer of history - both personal and political. And just as Simon`s disappearance comes to represent the thousands of disappearances that were such a common occurrence during the dictatorship, so Emilia`s refusal to accept his death mirrors the country`s unwillingness to face its reality. The final work of the late Martinez, Purgatory is his most moving, most autobiographical novel.