Book description
One Sunday morning in October, István and his wife Vera start their
day as usual. They tidy their house; Vera makes a festive cake to put
in the freezer and cuts fresh roses for a vase in the living room.
That evening, after nearly fifty years of marriage, they lie down in
their bed and take their own lives. Having survived the tumult of
twentieth-century Europe and after raising a family together, they
could not accept the words 'until death do us part'.
While sifting through the fragments of the family history in an
attempt to understand this glamorous and enigmatic couple, their
granddaughter Johanna Adorján imagines their final day. Amid the
family stories and portraits by friends, she dares to give voice to
their never-mentioned experiences in the Holocaust and their escape
from Hungary during the uprising of 1956.
Johanna Adorján is editor of the culture section of the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
. This is her first book.
