Swedish Tango

Two couples seek to escape their painful pasts and find asylum in Sweden in this intricate, occasionally melodramatic novel by Richman (The Mask Carver's Son). Salome de Ribero's tranquil life in Santiago, Chile, with her beloved husband Octavio, a film star and poet, and their three children, is shattered when Octavio's political alliances put the family in danger. Octavio finds himself on the wrong side after General Augusto Pinochet takes power in a violent coup, and Salome is kidnapped and tortured. Octavio, consumed by guilt, desperately tries to free her. After the family's escape to Sweden, Salome's story intertwines with that of Dr. Samuel Rudin, a French Jew whose parents fled to Peru during the Holocaust; now he's a therapist who treats recent survivors of torture and war. As he works with Salome, Dr. Rudin must admit his attraction to her and confront his own troubled relationship with his wife, Kaija. Richman presents an engrossing examination of the prisons people create for themselves and the way they accustom themselves to suffering until liberation seems as painful as captivity. This is an ambitious exploration of political and personal struggles, but Richman heaps too much misery on her long-suffering characters.