Glamour

"An elegant, poetic fable of endurance." -- Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

As rain brings a flourish of frogs, the bearded, Orthodox patriarch of a Budapest furniture manufacturing family, predicts, in the aftermath of World War I, an ominous future for Hungary. He and his family live in tasteful, spacious comfort above their classy showroom, where they sell fine quality reproduction of period pieces. The brief Red terror that follows the Great War, a foreshadowing of what will befall Hungary in the wake of World War II, finds the store striped of its stock, which is returned once the communist threat subsides.

By the 30s, the elder son has taken charge of the business and has become convinced the family needs an infusion of new blood. He marries a beautiful German nursery school teacher. Because Hungary has an alliance with Germany, and the Third Reich prohibits marriage between Gentiles and Jews, the couple can get around the Nazi decrees only by the teacher first becoming a divorced woman. So for three months she becomes the wife in name only of the familys firm dutiful upholsterer.

With the advent of the World War II, the shop emerges as a refuge in a world gone mad and which would grow even madder with the advent of communist rule. Gödrös deftly reveals the horrors of the Stalinist era paranoid cruelty.

Upplagd i sortimentet: 11 Oktober, 2009