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Parallel Stories: A Novel

ISBN: 9780374229764 | 0374229767

Edition: 1st
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pub. Date: 10/25/2011

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Summary Table of Contents Author Biography

A once-in-a-generation literary event: the monumental masterwork being hailed as a "twenty-first-century War and Peace" ( Magyar Nemzet) In 1989, the year the Berlin Wall came down, a university student on his morning run finds a corpse on a park bench and alerts the authorities. This classic police-procedural scene opens an extraordinary novel that traces the fate of myriad EuropeansHungarians, Jews, Germans, Gypsiesacross the treacherous years of the mid-twentieth century. The social and political circumstances of their lives may vary, their ... MOREsexual and spiritual longings may seem unique to each of them, yet Peter Nadas's magnificent tapestry weaves uncanny, reverberating parallels that link them across time and space. Three men are at the heart of Parallel Stories: Hans von Wolkenstein, whose German mother is linked to dark secrets of Fascist-Nazi collaboration during the 1940s; Agost Lippay Lehr, whose influential father has served Hungary's political regimes for decades; and Andras Rott, who has his own record of dark activities abroad. They are friends in Budapest when we meet them in the spring of 1961, a pivotal time in the postwar epoch. Their richly detailed, dramatic experiences now center on Budapest, but the action of the novel carries us across Europe from the Alps to river ports on the Danube, from Greece to the North Sea. The daring episodes of Parallel Storiesexplore the most intimate, difficult human experiences in prose glowing with uncommon clarity and mysterious uncertainty. This web of extended dramas reaches not just forward to the transformative year of 1989 but back to the spring of 1939, with Europe trembling on the edge of war; to the bestial times of 194445, when Budapest was besieged, the Final Solution devastated Hungary's Jews, and the war came to an end; and to the cataclysmic Hungarian Revolution of October 1956. Parallel Storiesis a daring, demanding, and moving exploration of humanity at its most constrained and its most free.

There are indeed parallel stories here: those of Hans von Wolkenstein, whose mother guards secrets about collaboration during the war; Agost Lippay Lehr, son of an influential Hungarian politician; and Andras Rott, who's been engaged in suspect activities abroad. We first encounter them in 1961 Budapest, but the novel flashes back to 1939 and forward to the watershed year of 1989. Nadas is a giant of contemporary literature-Susan Sontag called A Book of Memories "the greatest novel written in our time"-so get for all serious readers.

A New York Times Notable Book for 2011 �In 1989, the year the Wall came down, a university student in Berlin on his morning run finds a corpse on a park bench and alerts the authorities. This scene opens a novel of extraordinary scope and depth, a masterwork that traces the fate of myriad Europeans�Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Gypsies�across the treacherous years of the mid-twentieth century.

Three unusual men are at the heart of Parallel Stories: Hans von Wolkenstein, whose German mother is linked to secrets of fascist-Nazi collaboration during the 1940s; �gost Lippay Lehr, whose influential father has served Hungary�s different political regimes for decades; and Andr�s Rott, who has his own dark record of mysterious activities abroad. The web of extended and interconnected dramas reaches from 1989 back to the spring of 1939, when Europe trembled on the edge of war, and extends to the bestial times of 1944�45, when Budapest was besieged, the Final Solution devastated Hungary�s Jews, and the war came to an end, and on to the cataclysmic Hungarian Revolution of October 1956. We follow these men from Berlin and Moscow to Switzerland and Holland, from the Mediterranean to the North Sea, and of course, from village to city in Hungary. The social and political circumstances of their lives may vary greatly, their sexual and spiritual longings may seem to each of them entirely unique, yet P�ter N�das�s magnificent tapestry unveils uncanny reverberating parallels that link them across time and space.This is P�ter N�das�s masterpiece�eighteen years in the writing, a sensation in Hungary even before it was published, and almost four years in the translating. Parallel Stories is the first foreign translation of this daring, demanding, and momentous novel, and it confirms for an even larger audience what Hungary already knows: that it is the author�s greatest work.

Praise for A Book of Memories

“The greatest novel written in our time, and one of the great books of the century.” —Susan Sontag

“An epic and immensely fertile exploration of contemporary history and sensibility.” —Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times

P�ter N�das was born in Budapest in 1942. Among his works translated into English are the novels A Book of Memories (FSG, 1997), The End of a Family Story (FSG, 1998), and Love (FSG, 2000); a collection of stories and essays, Fire and Knowledge (FSG, 2007); and two pieces of short fiction, A Lovely Tale of Photography and P�ter N�das: Own Death. He lives with his wife in Gombosszeg, Hungary.

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