The Lord of All the Dead

The Lord of All the Dead by Javier Cercas.

Javier Cercas investigates the life of his great-uncle Manuel Mena, who died at nineteen while fighting for Franco. Family memory becomes the starting point for an inquiry into the Spanish Civil War and its enduring divisions.

Read it for the tension between affection and historical judgment. The book asks how to understand a beloved relative without allowing love to erase the cause he served.