The tattooed soldier
By: Héctor Tobar.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Delphinium Books; Distributed by HarperCollins
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Harrison, N.Y; [New York]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 307
Subjects: Guatemalan Americans -- California -- Los Angeles -- Fiction.; Los Angeles (Calif.) -- Fiction.
Description: In a shabby apartment in downtown L.A., Antonio Bernal is packing his worldly possessions into a Hefty trash bag. It is the final defeat in a series of blows that drove him from Guatemala after a death squad murdered his wife and child, a boy of two.

In MacArthur Park, not far from Antonio's apartment, Guillermo Longoria is playing chess. As Longoria considers his next move, his mind is empty of memories, especially the worst memory of all: the sound children make when they die, a terrible but necessary part of his patriotic duty as a member of the Jaguar Battalion of the Guatemalan army. The Tattooed Soldier is the story of these two haunted men and the tragic intersection of their lives.